Harry Quinn Rebuild

[pistolpedro]

Picked this up from the local small ads, seller was the original owner who bought it from Quinn, was put into storage unbuilt pretty much straight away then recently built up by a LBS using modern parts sadly the owner had an accident and was unable to ride the bike once it was completed so its never actually been ridden

First job was to remove the cable ties on the top tube, then give the bike a good clean, used a clay bar to remove any dirt then t cut and finally wax

As you can see the frame has braze ons for bar end shifters so i picked up some campag ones on ebay, they were not in the best of order but they were complete, used wet and dry paper to get most of the scratches out and polish them up (left one completed right as i got them) would like some red rubber grips to finish them off

Needed teh steel outers to go with these luckily I found a nos campag set in belgium, they were pretty dirty but some autosol and brasso cleaned them up a treat

Some more parts below;

Plan is to replace all the components with period parts ideally nuovo record (except mafac cantis)

I'll update as I go along

 

[Old Ned]

Excellent bike but a strange combination of round 'track' style forks and cantilever braze-ons. I wonder what the original idea was?

Nervex Pro lugs and probably 531 tubing? Possibly a '60's date of build unless you know different.

Those Campag bar end levers have come up nice. The proper Campag lever rubbers are like hen's teeth these days.

 

[pistolpedro]

Hi Ned

yes there are a number of unusual things on the frame, there is no eyelets on the forks so maybe they are track forks, eyelets on the rear but no hole in the seat stay bridge, also its designed for 700c wheels :?

I would agree with a 60's build its almost identical to another quinn i had which was dated to the 60's although that had a wrap over seat stays and braze on cable guides , although that was designed for 27"s

The seller bought it in I think 1980 (dont think it was made to order) however I'm guessing it may have been a cancelled order in the 60's and sat on the shelf for a number of years it has the earlier head badge on also

Pleased how the shifters turned out although the photo makes them look better than they are would really like to replace the bolt and locknut as they're a bit chewed up however there a very unusual piece guessing made specifically for these shifters,

Yes really stugling to find the rubber covers, have to keep searching thats half the fun i think

 

[pistolpedro]

small update

Got back off holiday last week so can start souring more parts now Cant afford NOS prices on the larger components so been trying to buy good used then cleaning up myself

Picked up the front and rear derailleurs (nuovo record) really pleased with the condition will be going over them with brasso (need to go to tesco first)

Got a NOS body also, however I think this is from a later date so may not be using it on this build

Lots of small parts mainly for the deralliuers to smarten them up a bit

Picked up a Nuovo record seatpost on the fixed gear forum

Polished it up with wet and dry (240 -3000) and had the top media blasted,

Problem is the cradles (pics below) are proving impossible to polish, they are quite tarnished at the minute with lots of small black marks over them no matter what grade of sand paper i use i cant seem to make any noticeable mark on them, they are attracted to a magnet so i'm guessing they are not aluminium like the actual post

Does anybody know what material these cradles are made from? If they are steel surely they would suffer from rust? could they have some sort of protective coating over them, could they be anodised?

 

[Old Ned]

The cradles never seem to polish up fully, they always have a matt finish to them. Possibly some form of cast iron if they're magnetic - I've never checked this!

All looking good so far!

 

[pistolpedro]

Thanks ned, got a few more bits arriving this week hopefully start bolting a few of them on

Asked on an american forum one guy thinks they may be nickel plated steel, and that they were unpolished when they were plated hence the dull finish,

Might take a ride up to my local chrome platers and see if they can strip and replate them, all depends on cost might just make more sense to get a new old stock one

 

[errol]

Beautiful bike. Looks like its going to end up very nice. Nice find.

 

[pistolpedro]

Thanks errol

saddle and bars arrived yesterday

Was a toss up between a red leather unicator or the brooks, went for the brooks in the end as I really like this colour when it has mellowed with age plus it really shows of the seatpost which i think is a great looking design,

I know its not period correct but i thought it is in the spirit of the bike, will be removing the titanium writing in time, like to loose the bag tabs but i'm not brave enough to take a hacksaw to it just yet

Regarding the seatpost cradles, I trial fitted the saddle when it arrived and they didnt look to bad at all, you can notice they are not in perfect order if you look very closely but they'll definitely do for the time being, the new chrome bolts really smartened them up also

Went for criterium bars in the end (thanks mr lomax) , one side is great the other is lightly scratched however i think it just marked the anodising and not the metal beneath, will be stripping them soon and polishing out the marks, may possibly have them re anodised have to se what sort of finish they can get

pete

 

[pistolpedro]

more parts arrived

Levers and hoods, went for campags in the end, should have gone for mafac levers (match the brakes) but not keen on the look of the 60's ones,

hoods should be the globe logo but couldnt stretch to the £90 :shock: so went for later shield logo ones instead

Brake cable outer, picked up this red and white striped was going to go for the grey campag, its a bit jazzy but it matches the frame really well (red and white)

After weeks of searching finally found a 1st gen 1a stem in the right length, in fairly good order the only bad point is the expander bolt which is pretty chewed up, thought it was an easy replacement however i discovered its 7mm (later ones 6mm) so have its going to be tricky to find a replacement

more pics below

Went to the anodisers on thursday, looking to get a number of the parts refinished as original as possible, (plan is to strip them, polish them then re anodise in clear or silver) took a later 1a stem and 65 bars to try it out, if it works out I'll take the older parts up for the same treatment

 

[dirtydaniel]

interesting build. nice work