I've been stripping it down and thinking about the build whilst carrying out a little gentle cleaning.
Ed/Sinett - I concur on the repaint debate. It will get a clean and a cut, and the exposed areas I'll touch up with clear laquer. I'm testing a batch on a small section of the fork.
One of the decals is perilous: faded and flappy. It will probably have to go.
Other rules are clean but only replace where necessary. So far it looks like I'll need:
new 2mm brake cables [Yo-Eddy has come up trumps: cheers squire
]
XT blocks;
rings and cogs;
jockey wheels;
hub bearings and cones;
seat binder bolt - the original appears to be a cast iron monster: any ideas for a sensible replacement gratefully received.
Pedals;
headset innards;
grips;
retrue wheels and replace a spoke or two.
It also needs a new BB. On this point I think I'm going to be naughty and put in decent light weight one. It'll be my little addition.
While extracting a stuck quill plug [wd40 and heat the tube], I noticed some interesting details on the fork. For the record:
happily, it carries the same serial number as the frame; it has columbus dropouts, and the steerer tube is made of a spirally reinforced tubeset - I'm assuming some sort of columbus.