There were a few things I didn't finish when cleaned the components for the S-10, like rebuilding the pedals and polishing out some road rash on the left crank arm. And I thought it was ready to go...
The bottom bracket cartridge was dry so I was able to try a trick I found on mytenspeeds.com, which is to drill a small hole through the sealed cartridge's casing, and, using a plastic sirynge(?) made for giving cats liquids, forcing grease into the cartridge until it comes out the ends.
Thus does American (I assume) ingenuity defeat corporate planned obsolescence occasionally... It's snowing this morning!
Next comes the Schwinn S-10, a full-suspension mountain bike with high end Shimano Deore LX/XT components. Last night I touched up the metallic blue paint and realized I hadn't washed the bike yet! I first had to strip the clearcoat off the polished aluminum rear triangle - to allow re-polishing - so I kind of lost track of my steps.
Fortunately I did clean the areas to be touched up with alcohol before I painted them, so hopefully things will end up okay. Thanks to my special brand of incompetence, every bike is it's own adventure... :-) This is Haven, my bad weather emergency refuge bike shop. Today I finally was able to get around to doing more work on the Bridgestone MB-1, and I'm doing it in Haven because today is a very Hurricane day, meaning it is extremely windy outside. Also pictured is the adjustable long arm flourescent light that I found at a yard sale and fixed up. It is extremely helpful in dark little haven. I've installed the Bridgestone's gear cables and housings, and the chain, and next will install the brake cables and brake levers, getting them roughly adjusted until I can do them correctly outside when it's a little calmer! Slowly, slowly, Miss Bridgestone is becoming a bicycle. This is our shingle.
From the 1990 Bridgestone Catalog:
Note the yellow diamond on the seat tube with the MB-1 logo on it. 1990 was the only year they used that, as far as I can tell. Our bike has held up pretty well, as long as you keep four feet or more away. Touch up paint is hard to get perfect (as applied by me anyway)!
Mounted the tires, then the wheels, the new grips came today as well as the replacement brake levers I got from eBay.
For some reason the new levers themselves are longer than the originals, though they have the same Shimano Deore part number stamped on them. So, since what I needed anyway were the lever mounts and rubber hoods, I'll switch levers after painting the old ones shiny black. We had a freezing wind all day that prevented outside activity without frostbite, thank The Lord for Haven, small as she is. And I need new cable housings for the Bridgestone after all... Thought I could get away with the old ones but the ferrules are bent. More $$$! What's so cool about Bridgestones from the 1980s and 1990s is the legendary obstinacy of the company's CEO at the time, Grant Peterson. When most other bicycle companies were working towards performance in racing by switching to aluminum and Carbon fiber bicycle frames, Bridgestone under Mr. Peterson continued building bicycles using lightweight Tange steel frame construction. Rather than focusing on performance alone, Mr. Peterson was/is a strong believer that bicycles should be designed for touring and leisure riding as well racing, made to be as comfortable for the rider as possible, and suited to the use he or she was putting the bike to. Anyway, Bridgestone designed and built some amazing bicycles during this period. The RB-1 and MB-1 are legendary because of their excellent quality, lightweight construction, and frame 'geometry' - the latter of which resulted in superior riding experience for the rider. I learned all of this online, of course, so I could sound like I know what I'm talking about in the blog here. Learning is my job... However, I can confirm the superior ride and feel of a Bridgestone, having experienced it on the RB-1 we owned for a short time. It really felt solid, went where you pointed it, and, well... It's hard to explain the differences between bicycles using words! Back to my 1990 MB-1. The front and rear deraileurs are now on, the stem is on, and the handlebars are on. Tomorrow if all goes well I'll put the tires and tubes on the wheels and do the cable housings - get things functioning, I hope.
Or maybe day after tomorrow, the way things are going... I started on the now touched-up Bridgestone MB-1 tonight. First the crank and pedals. These are Sakae 'Low Fat' pedals - very lightweight. I had to replace the bottom bracket with a cartridge bottom bracket, as the axle from the original one had pitted bearing races. Derailleurs next...
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