AlHodkinson
Dirt Disciple
Just joined the forum after starting to renovate my Dad's Walvale lightweight road bike. The frame was custom made for him sometime around 1964 and built up with some nice components. Frame was built in 531 tubing, lugged, with full chromed forks and rear triangle, Campag ends. He rode with Southport CC, getting some pretty good times for time-trials even by today's standards. Since then the bike has gone through a few changes over the years - a home-brewed repaint job possibly in the late 80s and replacement of many of the worn out parts with newer, but less desirable parts.
So fast forward to this year when I extracted the bike from his garage (now he has retired he has bought himself a new bike) - the frame was quite pitted with rust and the chrome forks/rear triangle too far gone to just clean up. Unfortunately I stripped it down before I had chance to take any photos!
The frame has now gone down to Argos cycles in Bristol for a respray. The frame really would need the chrome re-doing, that is just far too expensive so it will be solid colour frame & forks, red, white lug lining as per the original paint job. Frame should all be sorted by beginning of April. I took a few pictures after shot blasting.
Had some welcome help from Sean on this board (who recently resprayed a newer Walvale) getting hold of replacement decals:
In terms of the components, speaking to my Dad it seems that the frame was never built up with a full groupset per-se but a collection of lightweight quality parts:
Brooks saddle, GB ventoux bars, Ambrosio gran-prix stem, Mafac centre-pull brakes, Record front mech, Simplex rear mech, Stronglight chainset, Weinman sprint rims on Record hubs. Some of this I have, some I don't and will need to find! In terms of the restoration I am going to take a pragmatic approach and use a mixture of components up to the late 1960's - I don't want to spend an absolute fortune and want this to be a bike I can ride not just keep as a museum piece.
Here is the first of the bits cleaned up (I do realise the value of these having done a quick ebay search!):
As you can see I'll need to source a pair of replacement threaded Mafac brake block holders (two have been broken/lost and replaced with modern brake shoes) plus the small aluminium tapered washers used to position it around the caliper arm, although I can probably spend some time with a file to trim down a modern aluminium washer into the right shape.
And potentially replacement rubber hoods, I had seen modern Cane Creek hoods which may fit, rather than trying to find true period replacements.
Anyway that is enough for tonight, any comments / help greatfully appreciated as although I have build my own modern road & mountain bikes, I don't know much about restoring a classic bike!
So fast forward to this year when I extracted the bike from his garage (now he has retired he has bought himself a new bike) - the frame was quite pitted with rust and the chrome forks/rear triangle too far gone to just clean up. Unfortunately I stripped it down before I had chance to take any photos!
The frame has now gone down to Argos cycles in Bristol for a respray. The frame really would need the chrome re-doing, that is just far too expensive so it will be solid colour frame & forks, red, white lug lining as per the original paint job. Frame should all be sorted by beginning of April. I took a few pictures after shot blasting.
Had some welcome help from Sean on this board (who recently resprayed a newer Walvale) getting hold of replacement decals:
In terms of the components, speaking to my Dad it seems that the frame was never built up with a full groupset per-se but a collection of lightweight quality parts:
Brooks saddle, GB ventoux bars, Ambrosio gran-prix stem, Mafac centre-pull brakes, Record front mech, Simplex rear mech, Stronglight chainset, Weinman sprint rims on Record hubs. Some of this I have, some I don't and will need to find! In terms of the restoration I am going to take a pragmatic approach and use a mixture of components up to the late 1960's - I don't want to spend an absolute fortune and want this to be a bike I can ride not just keep as a museum piece.
Here is the first of the bits cleaned up (I do realise the value of these having done a quick ebay search!):
As you can see I'll need to source a pair of replacement threaded Mafac brake block holders (two have been broken/lost and replaced with modern brake shoes) plus the small aluminium tapered washers used to position it around the caliper arm, although I can probably spend some time with a file to trim down a modern aluminium washer into the right shape.
And potentially replacement rubber hoods, I had seen modern Cane Creek hoods which may fit, rather than trying to find true period replacements.
Anyway that is enough for tonight, any comments / help greatfully appreciated as although I have build my own modern road & mountain bikes, I don't know much about restoring a classic bike!
