The Belgian-Japanese connection Flandria

[Flandria]

Re: Re:

well that is starting well

and 25 € for a full dura ace group :facepalm: I am a bit jalous :shock:
I had to pay a 100 but for a bike with a black one

I confess I did not know powdercoating could give such a result
maybe a bit thicker than wetpaint ? but if its between 60 and 80 euros that's ace

put a pic of the downtube shifters you are looking for - maybe able to help you but dont get overexcited - I don't promiss yet

I'm also pretty pleased with the result of the powdercoating. It's definitely thicker than wetpaint and if you look closely, it has some flaws. The lugs on this frame are also pretty 'pronounced'. They are not as 'delicate' or detailed as the lugs you would see on a fine Italian frame. So I doubt the result on a 'finer' frame would be as good! But hell, for the €40 I paid for blasting, coating and laquer I'm happy

These are the shifters I'm looking for: http://www.velobase.com/ViewComponent.a ... 4&AbsPos=7. I like the look of those much more than the first generation ones. I'm looking for a band-on pair!

Hey Flandria- don't know if you remember my thread about Dura-Ace brake lever variants? Your Gazelle CM seemed to be wearing a pair of levers like mine- the old 'bulbous' shaped body with slotted blade with non-diagonal logo. IIRC you said those levers were date-coded BL (Dec. '77)

These levers on this thread are I guess DA 7200- the new waisted-shape body with diagonal logo on the slotted blade, and you are saying that these are also date-coded BL?

I double checked it for you and yes, both pairs have a BL code stamped in the body . Strange situation! Velobase tells me the DA 7200 were made from 1978, but I guess this pair proves them wrong! Or they were not so strict on the date codes back in Japan . But also, the difference between BL and C is only one month, so no big problem

By the way, I'm also thinking about stem and seatpost. Would like to keep it Japanese, so SR?

 

[torqueless]

Re:

Thanks. If you have a pair in each style with the BL code I guess that is evidence for Dec. '77 being the changeover month between these styles of lever- I'm calling them 7100 and 7200, I don't know if that's accurate terminology? I can't imagine they had two machines stamping out both styles simultaneously, but you never know... Maybe they changed over at the winter solstice? Maybe you have the last pair of 7100 off the production line and the first pair of 7200... who knows?

Looks like the bar-clamps are different too, with a bolt holding the lever to the clamp instead of a nut?

 

[Midlife]

First Gen Shimano, the best ever kit for road bikes I worked in a bike shop mid to late 70's and bought Shimano stuff as it came from the reps and raced it on my road bike The cranks interest me as yours have quite a bit of "roughness" in the hollows of the spider and the crank arms.

For some strange reason they seemed to come with rough / smooth at random, the "Black" version seemed to be smoother than the all silver and if they came with a chainring guard then they seemed smoother. Then as I moved over to being a Junior 1977 ( age17) they changed again !!

The downtube levers you want were just coming available as I left for University, much thinner and sharper on the edges that the originals.

Shaun

 

[bduc61]

First Gen Shimano, the best ever kit for road bikes I worked in a bike shop mid to late 70's and bought Shimano stuff as it came from the reps and raced it on my road bike The cranks interest me as yours have quite a bit of "roughness" in the hollows of the spider and the crank arms.

For some strange reason they seemed to come with rough / smooth at random, the "Black" version seemed to be smoother than the all silver and if they came with a chainring guard then they seemed smoother. Then as I moved over to being a Junior 1977 ( age17) they changed again !!

The downtube levers you want were just coming available as I left for University, much thinner and sharper on the edges that the originals.

Shaun

Shaun
As we are talking a lot early Dura Ace, I digress a bit ( Hope Flandria won't mind)

Were these chainring guards you mention mounted on cranksets for "randonneuse" type bikes ?

I wonder as its interesting to see that Shimano was one of the few upmarket manufacturer to provide these ( with Specialites TA and Sugino as far as I see) but later did not anymore.
Seems to me that its a bit the same choice for center pull Dura Ace calipers and double levers, as well as the long cage rear derailleur engraved Crane GS. Maybe not enough sales or not racy enough to compete "marketing wise" with Campa Nuovo Record ?

Incidentally does somebody knows whar GS stands for ? Gran Sport ??? to mimic Campa :shock:

I plan to build a full chrome randonneuse on a french frame but with this full Dura Ace equipment to make it a bit original ( no french ubiquitous TA or Stronglight , Mafac and Simplex stuff or Campa Rally and else) so I have also found such a chainguard but still wonder when they were used :idea: :?:

Would like to hear you about that :mrgreen:

 

[Midlife]

bduc61

Again I apologise to the OP

The chainring guards were available from all the manufacturers BITD, even Campag did one. They were meant for the lightweight touring market which was a bit of a difficult sector to put a name to.

I guess the best name would have been a "demi-course" bike, a sort of touring bike with light weight kit for daily trips out into the countryside rather than lugging your tent about. A quick google will show the Carlton Corsair as a UK model.

I was on the lookout for a 70's Black Dura Ace Drivetrain for a 70's ALAN and ended up buying a complete bike which looks like a Velo Sport Alpin which has a chainset with a chain guard.......... not sure why I bought a complete bike for a crankset and a rear mech but there you go LOL

The double levers are interesting, when they were launched they were called "GT" levers which didn't go down well and were soon named "safety levers". Which is a bit daft really as they were hopeless and were universally called suicide levers ! The naming of components was as random as the badges on the back of cars for the most part.

Ranndoneur, 1/2 Randonneur, Randonneuse, Randonneu ............ I think even the French ran out of names for a lightweight tourer using lightweight kit like the Shimano in your picture.

Build on

Shaun

 

[Flandria]

Re: Re:

Thanks. If you have a pair in each style with the BL code I guess that is evidence for Dec. '77 being the changeover month between these styles of lever- I'm calling them 7100 and 7200, I don't know if that's accurate terminology? I can't imagine they had two machines stamping out both styles simultaneously, but you never know... Maybe they changed over at the winter solstice? Maybe you have the last pair of 7100 off the production line and the first pair of 7200... who knows?

Looks like the bar-clamps are different too, with a bolt holding the lever to the clamp instead of a nut?

Yup, comes with a allen key bolt to fix the lever to the clamp! You can see it on the picture of the clean parts!

Bduc61 and Midlife: no problem gentlemen, go on, I enjoy all those trivia

 

[Flandria]

Re:

4. Derailleurs, brakes and headset

First: gears! Rear derailleur will be a 7200. It came on the Olmo donor and I like it more than the first generation 'Crane' version. After a lot of cleaning (least favorite part to clean, for me ):

Front derailleur than! For this component, I like the looks of the first generation rather than the second generation. So, first generation it is! Found this one in the parts box. Dismanteled, cleaned, and regreased in three simple pictures:

The headset also came from the Olmo. No pitting on the inside of the cups so some elbow grease, autosol and steel wool gave the following result. Stem is not the one that's going on this frame, but I wanted to see how the headset/frame looked in combination with a polished stem.

For the brake calipers, I went for first generation ones. Frames isn't built for recessed nut brakes so obvious choice. I had a pair of these calipers on a Gazelle CM (in sig!) and took those. The second generation ones that came on the Olmo are now on the Gazelle.

I went to the Stalen Ros bike jumble yesterday, and found some more goodies for this bike. Update with pictures will follow soon. Minor problem: I found an awesome 27.2mmNOS Sakae Ringyo Custom seatpost. Wasn't 100% sure about diameter but took it home. Turns out that I need 27.0mm :facepalm: . If someone is in for a swap

 

[bduc61]

Re:

ouch - it shines :idea: lovely start even if you choose different groups parts

I actually never noticed the front derailleur could be dismantled :idea:

I am playing quite often with the rear derailleurs ( Dura Ace , 600 Arabesque ) to make some revamped ones with a few battered or damaged ones - with a bit of struggling with the springs :roll: but never tried with the fronts. Will ahve a look at that too :idea:

 

[deanhempshall]

Lovely, it's really nice to see the TLC put into restoring & making parts shiny.

 

[Flandria]

Re: Re:

I actually never noticed the front derailleur could be dismantled :idea:

I am playing quite often with the rear derailleurs ( Dura Ace , 600 Arabesque ) to make some revamped ones with a few battered or damaged ones - with a bit of struggling with the springs :roll: but never tried with the fronts. Will ahve a look at that too :idea:

I was also surprised by the amount of tiny pieces that came of the FD. If you like struggling with springs, dismantling this model is recommended. Needed help of a second pair of hands to get the tension back

Lovely, it's really nice to see the TLC put into restoring & making parts shiny.

That's what I like about this hobby! Nothing more satisfying than bringing new life in old parts. Can't see where the fun is in buying all NOS parts and just assembling a 'perfect' bike!


5. Bars and pedals

Still only Belgian and Japanese components on the bike, and I would like to keep it like that!

If Velobase is correct, the first dura ace pedals appeared in 1980. More or less acceptable in my mind, but imo the aero-look is to modern for this build. So I went for something Japanese with a more classical look: Kyokuto Pro Ace. A quick google session learnt that these pedals were Kyokuto's top level pedals. They're a straight on copy of Campagnolo Record pedals.

Uncleaned:

And after regreasing the bearings and cleaning them up:

Next: the bars. Japanese brands would bring me to SR or Sugino. But, Flandria also had their own bars back in the day (or at least they did engravings on existing bars). I have seen them on mostly mid range Flandria bikes, so they won't be that special but still . A found a battered one on last weekend Stalen Ros bike jumble for €5 and decided to give it a chance.

The logo's before:

To clean them up, I sanded them down with 800 grit sanding paper. Afterwards steel wool and polishing. Took me more or less 30 minutes to get this result:

The stem is a Sakae Ryngio Forged one, that will also be polished when I find some more time.

The Freddy Maertens logo refers to his victory in Paris-Brussels in 1975, where he took the 'Ruban Jaune' (more info here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruban_Jaune). On the other side, the numerous world championship victory in the 60's and 70's are honoured. Maybe not a top quality cockpit, but definitely one with character!