raymondluxuryyacht
Senior Retro Guru
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OK, here's the story.
This project began last year (200
.
A friend who I go biking with was chatting with me about past bikes and happened to mention that he still had this p7 frame sitting in his parents garage. It hadn't been used in sometime and he couldn't really remember exactly what other parts might still be attached to the frame.
Now I don't like seeing things going to waste and I like having 'projects' to work on and doing things the way I like to be done. So I asked my mate whether he'd thought about doing anything with it and he didn't seem that keen. A few more rides later and I mention it again and he seems a bit keener. I guess it was taking up space in the garage and very slowly decaying. He also mentioned he had a set of wheels for it ! So before not too long I got the frame and forks of a 1995 orange p7, soon followed by some nice wheels at an extremely reasonable price. In fact I felt a little guilty getting it for relatively little and was hoping I hadn't pestered him into it.
My basic plan was to do a re-build using original parts where they were available in new or nearly new condition at a reasonable price. I didn't want to get too perfectionist about it in terms of orignality though. I wanted to have the bike as a 'spare' for friends or relatives to use, and have some fun building it up. I guess secretly I was hoping to get my wife riding with me a little !
The general condition of the frame and forks seemed ok. No signs of damage other than the finish. It was a nickel plated finish with lacquering over the top. The lacquer had flaked off in lots of places, the frame had lots of little tiny corrosion spots, the nickel finish had actually come completely off on the undrside of the BB and there were some pretty heavy scratches on the fork and seatstays. I was torn between building this up on the cheap or having it re-plated or sprayed properly.
The frame had a set of cranks, bb, headset and front mech on it.
Unfortunately the headset was quite gritty and had a bit of play. The bb was ok-ish but the chainrings on the cranks were pretty shot...and being stx-rc had a rather odd bolt circle diameter.
The frame sat in my house whilst I tried to work out if this project was going to be a goer. I decided the chainset had to go. Also the bottom bracket was a little worrying as it was one with a metal non-drive side fitting and I didn't want to get the bike working only to have the bb packup later and find it was hard to remove.
Initially it was looking dodgy. The cranks came off ok but the bottom bracket was still a cause for concern. I decide to have a go at shifting the bb. After much overnight soaking with wd40 it still wouldn't budge. Also I was concerned about getting a replacement headset as new 1" threaded headsets were not exactly growing on trees. I was dreading that I would not be able to find a replacement or ...at least one with a low enough stack height.
The next thing that happened was by complete chance a brand new identical headset appeared in a clearout on chainreaction. So I purhcased this and it spurred me on. I resorted to a local bike shop to see if the BB would come off with some more substantial tools. They came good and the bb was removed. There was a bit of surface rust in the bottom bracket but nothing too bad. I managed to clean it up with some gentle wire brushing.
I then had a go at cleaning the frame up. Firstly gentle and with some soapy water, then something a bit stronger. I also tested some of the worst bits of the frame with some light-sanding but it wasn't coming up that well. So having sorted the vital bits (bb and headset) and established that the project was worth doing.. I started to look around for resprays. I have always liked oranges ever since i had a clockwork around 89/90 and it was very tempting to try and make it look good. In the end I decided to hang the expense and it get it blasted and painted properly by argos in Bristol. I went for a metaliic silvery colour that, whilst not original, had an early 90s look about it and also looked like it was something orange might have used. Some more recent silver finishes on orange bikes also convinced me of this. So around Christmas time I posted the frame forks, headset and BB off to argos and waited patiently.
Pic coming in next post....
This project began last year (200
.A friend who I go biking with was chatting with me about past bikes and happened to mention that he still had this p7 frame sitting in his parents garage. It hadn't been used in sometime and he couldn't really remember exactly what other parts might still be attached to the frame.
Now I don't like seeing things going to waste and I like having 'projects' to work on and doing things the way I like to be done. So I asked my mate whether he'd thought about doing anything with it and he didn't seem that keen. A few more rides later and I mention it again and he seems a bit keener. I guess it was taking up space in the garage and very slowly decaying. He also mentioned he had a set of wheels for it ! So before not too long I got the frame and forks of a 1995 orange p7, soon followed by some nice wheels at an extremely reasonable price. In fact I felt a little guilty getting it for relatively little and was hoping I hadn't pestered him into it.
My basic plan was to do a re-build using original parts where they were available in new or nearly new condition at a reasonable price. I didn't want to get too perfectionist about it in terms of orignality though. I wanted to have the bike as a 'spare' for friends or relatives to use, and have some fun building it up. I guess secretly I was hoping to get my wife riding with me a little !
The general condition of the frame and forks seemed ok. No signs of damage other than the finish. It was a nickel plated finish with lacquering over the top. The lacquer had flaked off in lots of places, the frame had lots of little tiny corrosion spots, the nickel finish had actually come completely off on the undrside of the BB and there were some pretty heavy scratches on the fork and seatstays. I was torn between building this up on the cheap or having it re-plated or sprayed properly.
The frame had a set of cranks, bb, headset and front mech on it.
Unfortunately the headset was quite gritty and had a bit of play. The bb was ok-ish but the chainrings on the cranks were pretty shot...and being stx-rc had a rather odd bolt circle diameter.
The frame sat in my house whilst I tried to work out if this project was going to be a goer. I decided the chainset had to go. Also the bottom bracket was a little worrying as it was one with a metal non-drive side fitting and I didn't want to get the bike working only to have the bb packup later and find it was hard to remove.
Initially it was looking dodgy. The cranks came off ok but the bottom bracket was still a cause for concern. I decide to have a go at shifting the bb. After much overnight soaking with wd40 it still wouldn't budge. Also I was concerned about getting a replacement headset as new 1" threaded headsets were not exactly growing on trees. I was dreading that I would not be able to find a replacement or ...at least one with a low enough stack height.
The next thing that happened was by complete chance a brand new identical headset appeared in a clearout on chainreaction. So I purhcased this and it spurred me on. I resorted to a local bike shop to see if the BB would come off with some more substantial tools. They came good and the bb was removed. There was a bit of surface rust in the bottom bracket but nothing too bad. I managed to clean it up with some gentle wire brushing.
I then had a go at cleaning the frame up. Firstly gentle and with some soapy water, then something a bit stronger. I also tested some of the worst bits of the frame with some light-sanding but it wasn't coming up that well. So having sorted the vital bits (bb and headset) and established that the project was worth doing.. I started to look around for resprays. I have always liked oranges ever since i had a clockwork around 89/90 and it was very tempting to try and make it look good. In the end I decided to hang the expense and it get it blasted and painted properly by argos in Bristol. I went for a metaliic silvery colour that, whilst not original, had an early 90s look about it and also looked like it was something orange might have used. Some more recent silver finishes on orange bikes also convinced me of this. So around Christmas time I posted the frame forks, headset and BB off to argos and waited patiently.
Pic coming in next post....
