Another bicycle renovation
(originally a Facebook note posted Sunday, February 22, 2009 at 10:58pm)
Feb. 1st: found an abandoned bicycle on West Dedham street. no wheels, rusted derailleur and chain, blighted with spray paint. horizontal drop-outs, so it’ll work as a 3-speed for Ingrid. I brought it home, of course.

Feb. 3rd: what is it? One of the “Trek” decals is still visible despite the spray paint. Vintage-trek.com has lots of helpful details, including where to look for the serial #: remove the cable guide from under the bottom bracket. By serial number, it’s a Trek 520 from 1983. butted alloy frame, either Reynolds 501, or Tange 2001.

Feb. 8th: Removed derailleurs and chain. The flat-black spray paint is ugly and it feels dirty. “goo-gone” takes a tiny bit of it off, but not much. I really don’t want to have to completely repaint the frame.
The brakes are stuck. I backed off the lock-nuts a tiny bit, and now they’re fine. i removed the brakes to be able to work on the frame more.

Feb. 9th: Rubbing alcohol softens the spray paint a little without damaging the underlying Trek paint! I’ve got it smoothed out, and you can see the other “Trek” decal. perhaps good enough?

Feb. 20th: disassembled the headset and removed the cranks. The fork-crown race is a little pitted, and the bottom bracket (BB) axle threads are a little corroded. Packed everything up to take to western MA.

Feb. 21st: A friend in Turners Falls runs a tiny bike store. He told me to just repack the headset with loose ball bearings instead of the retainer-clips that have fewer balls in them, and not to worry about the threads, they’re good enough. big savings! I still might replace the BB axle if i can find a shorter one. The bike came with 3 chainrings, and the longer BB axle required for that. It’s probably going to be easier to get a straight chain line with a shorter one.

The rules are simple: Tweet your ZIPcode (preceded by #), find out who your neighbors are.

I’m #02116 (Boston Byootiful South End), also have a home in #10026 (Harlem USA, baby, as of 10:45 Eastern, I was the only Local Day Tweeter from there). Born and later educated in #02138 (the OTHER Cambridge), grew up in #06457 (Middletown, CT)

Can’t wait to see who else turns up.

Go to Twitter Search (even if you don’t have an account) to watch the fun.