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| Jose's 1983 Trek 410 - Bicycle After |
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| Jose's 1983 Trek 410 - Bicycle Before |
This is the second bike in the three at once restoration. This is Jose's early 1980's Trek Road Bike. The large down tube decal is mostly missing so I will have to do some research to find the exact model, but I am guessing it is a 410? The plan for the Trek road bike is a restoration with not much in upgrades. The accent color to the blue frame will be mostly white.
The frame is in pretty good condition minus the decals. The components have some pretty nasty thick grease and grime, but not as bad as the grease was on the Miyata Gran Touring 210, but close! The frame is my favorite, Steel Lugged and its famous Reynolds 531 tubing so it pretty decently light.
Parts are starting to trickle in. The frame has been stripped of components and will be cleaned and polished with the other two restorations.
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| Jose's 1983 Trek 410 - Bicycle Before - Side View |
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Jose's 1983 Trek 410 - Bicycle Before - Crank &
Front Derailleur View |
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| Jose's 1983 Trek 410 - Bicycle Before - Bottom Bracket |
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| Jose's 1983 Trek 410 - Bicycle View - Front Wheel Hub |
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Jose's 1983 Trek 410 - Bicycle Before
Front Brake View |
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Jose's 1983 Trek 410 - Bicycle Before - Handlebar
View |
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Jose's 1983 Trek 410 - Bicycle Before
Shift Levers - Love the Detail of The Matching
Blue on the Levers. |
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Jose's 1983 Trek 410 - Bicycle Before
Rear Derailleur - Same Blue Detail |
Frame Stripped of components below and the famous Reynolds 531 decal.
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| Jose's 1983 Trek 410 - Frame Dirty - Side View |
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| Jose's 1983 Trek 410 - Frame Dirty - Bottom Bracket |
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| Jose's 1983 Trek 410 - Frame Dirty - Top Tube |
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| Jose's 1983 Trek 410 - Frame Dirty - Seat Stays |
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| Jose's 1983 Trek 410 - Frame Dirty - Fork Before |
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| Jose's 1983 Trek 410 - Reynolds 531 Decal |
That is where the bicycle is now, will start to go pretty fast along with the other two restorations.
The Trek Reynolds 531 frame took sometime to clean and polish. The dirty was extremely hard to break free. Once clean the frame polished up well. There is some rust on the top tube cable brackets that bled onto the top tube, the rust staining cleaned up okay. Overall the frame looks good.
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| Jose's 1983 Trek 410 - Frame Polished |
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| Jose's 1983 Trek 410 - Frame Polished - Bottom Bracket |
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Jose's 1983 Trek 410 - Frame Polished
Seat Stays |
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Jose's 1983 Trek 410 - Frame Polished
Fork |
With the frame polished I put the bottom bracket and headset components into the crock pot on low to clean the grease. There is a little rust that should clean up when polished and the grease is not to bad.
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Jose's 1983 Trek 410 - Bottom Bracket & Headset
Before Cleaning |
Same for the other two bicycles in the three restorations the headset and bottom brackets turn smoothly. The headset had some rust spots and cracked chrome around those rust spots. The rust mostly polished off and the chrome polished nicely but there is some pretty deep pitting where the rust was. Installed the headset looks great.
The bottom bracket took a while to get the hard grease removed but polished very nicely. The bottom bracket looks great installed and turns smooth.
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| Jose's 1983 Trek 410 - Bottom Bracket & Headset - Polished |
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Jose's 1983 Trek 410 - Headset Cups
Pressed |
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| Jose's 1983 Trek 410 - Headset Bearings Packed |
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Jose's 1983 Trek 410 - Headset Complete
Looks Great |
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| Jose's 1983 Trek 410 - Bottom Bracket - Bearings Packed |
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Jose's 1983 Trek 410 - Bottom Bracket
Fixed Cup Installed |
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Jose's 1983 Trek 410 - Bottom Bracket
Complete |
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| Jose's 1983 Trek 410 - Bottom Bracket & Headset Complete |
The cranks are next on the list. The Trek road bike crank is very greasy and grimy but after cleaning it looks great, next will be the polishing of the crank arms and chain rings.
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| Jose's 1983 Trek 410 - Crank Before |
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| Jose's 1983 Trek 410 - Crank Disassembled |
The crank polished up pretty nice. Reassemble went easy and the shine really looks good against the blue of the frame.
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| Jose's 1983 Trek 410 - Crank Polished |
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| Jose's 1983 Trek 410 - Crank Installed |
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| Jose's 1983 Trek 410 - Crank Installed |
Next is the stem or quill and handlebars. The stem polished pretty good, there are some deep scratches that are not perfect but good. The handlebars also are not perfect but look very good.
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| Jose's 1983 Trek 410 - Stem Before |
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| Jose's 1983 Trek 410 - Handlebars before |
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Jose's 1983 Trek 410 -
Stem & Handlebars - Polished |
Things are moving along now. Next will be the wheels.
I am not going to do three restorations at once now, I am just going to finish one bike through at a time. Three at once is not faster, I would say its almost slower.
The wheels are complete, I badly underestimated the time and condition of the Trek's wheels. There was actually a lot of corrosion and staining to the alloy wheels and the spoke are cosmetically in bad shape. It took a lot of time to polish out the corrosion and staining, but the wheels rims look fantastic, I am very proud of my work. I also sanded the spokes to clean them up and look somewhat better. If Jose really likes the bike after riding it for a while I would actually recommend relacing the rims and hubs with new spokes, but that is a costly thing to do, but the rims and hubs are really nice so worth it if he likes the bike.
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Jose's 1983 Trek 410 - Rear Wheel
Before |
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| Jose's 1983 Trek 410 - Rear Wheel Hub - Before |
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Jose's 1983 Trek 410 - Rear Wheel Rim
Before |
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Jose's 1983 Trek 410 - Rear Wheel
Old Bearing Grease |
The old tires where so rotted to the rims that I had to cut them off, I did not like doing this because I thought I was cutting into tubes that still held air, but when I got the tires off the tubes where badly rotted to the inside of the tires.
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Jose's 1983 Trek 410
Old Tires Cut off |
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| Jose's 1983 Trek 410 - Rear Wheel Hub - Polished |
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Jose's 1983 Trek 410 - Rear Wheel Rim
Polished - I am Thrilled with the Rim! |
The front wheel was in the same shape with the rim in a little worse shape then the rear. It also polished very nice, I am very pleased with it.
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| Jose's 1983 Trek 410 - Front Wheel Hub - Before |
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Jose's 1983 Trek 410 - Front Wheel
Rim - Before |
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Jose's 1983 Trek 410 - Front Wheel
Old Grease |
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Jose's 1983 Trek 410 - Front Wheel
Hub - Polished |
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Jose's 1983 Trek 410 - Front Wheel Rim - Polished
A Bad Spot with Some Corrosion |
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Jose's 1983 Trek 410 - Rear Tire
Installed |
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| Jose's 1983 Trek 410 - Wheels & Tires Installed |
Below is a link to the very nice 27 x 1 1/8 inch Continental Sport tires. I have used these tires in the past and like them very much for older narrow 27 inch rims.
With the Trek 700 complete I am working hard on the Trek 410 road bike. Today UPS dropped of a new sonic cleaner, I have never used one before but thought I would give it a try in search of efficiency. It took sometime to figure out but WOW, awesome results.
I am starting on the brake levers, brake calipers and derailleurs today. I started with the brake levers, one at a time so I can use the old condition of one against the restored lever for before and after photos. I had to scrape off the old rubber brake hood first, which was badly rotted. I then put the lever in the sonic cleaner and ran it for 3 cycles. I am amazed at the results from the sonic cleaner. Of course the parts still need polishing, but the time saving with the sonic cleaner are amazing. The most time consuming part of a restoration is cleaning all the parts before they can be polished. I am looking forward to seeing what the sonic cleaner can do.
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| Jose's 1983 Trek 410 - Group Set - Before |
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| Jose's 1983 Trek 410 - Brake Levers - Before |
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Jose's 1983 Trek 410 - Brake Lever - After Sonic Cleaning
& Polishing |
I found new brake lever hoods that are so much nicer then the old brake lever hoods ever where. They are from Crane Creek and are black and fit perfectly.
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| Jose's 1983 Trek 410 - New Brake Hoods |
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| Jose's 1983 Trek 410 - Brake Levers - Before & After |
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Jose's 1983 Trek 410
Brake Lever Installed |
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Jose's 1983 Trek 410
Brake Levers - Before & After |
Below are a few photos of the second brake caliper with the new hood installed and a photo of both brake levers installed.
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Jose's 1983 Trek 410
Second Brake Lever Polished |
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| Jose's 1983 Trek 410 - Both Brake Levers - Installed |
Next I put the front derailleur in the sonic cleaner. I gave the front derailleur only a very quick brushing with a soft wire brush to knock some of the larger bits off and then put it in.
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| Jose's 1983 Trek 410 - Front Derailleur Before |
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Jose's 1983 Trek 410 - Front Derailleur After
Sonic Cleaning Only |
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Jose's 1983 Trek 410
Front Derailleur - Polished & Installed |
I also at this time disassembled a brake caliper and put it in the sonic cleaner. The brake caliper that I put in the sonic cleaner is the less dirty one in the photo below.
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| Jose's 1983 Trek 410 - Brake Calipers - Before |
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Jose's 1983 Trek 410
Brake Caliper Before
Disassembled |
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| Jose's 1983 Trek 410 - Brake Caliper After Sonic Cleaning |
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| Jose's 1983 Trek 410 - Brake Caliper - Before & After |
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| Jose's 1983 Trek 410 - Front Brake Caliper Installed |
The rear brake caliper was in a little rougher shape, but it still cleaned up beautifully, just a few dings.
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| Jose's 1983 Trek 410 - Rear Brake Caliper - Restored |
Next was the rear derailleur, I think this derailleur is one of the most beautiful derailleurs I have seen. I love the blue stripe down the middle. I am not sure, but I think there might not be enough tension in the derailleur, but we will find out when the chain is installed, otherwise the derailleur functions wonderfully after the pivot points where flushed and lubricated.
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Jose's 1983 Trek 410
Rear Derailleur - Before |
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| Jose's 1983 Trek 410 - Rear Derailleur - Polished |
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| Jose's 1983 Trek 410 - Rear Derailleur - Installed |
At This point I have the shift levers half done and tomorrow I will be finishing up the chain and running new cable housings and cables, polishing the seat post and installing the saddle and installing the reflectors. Everything going right hopefully it will be done tomorrow.
Did not get the Trek finished, but i do want to post a few photos I have left on this flash memory card before I go to a new one. I really like the blue detail in the shift levers to match the rear derailleur. I completely broke down the levers, cleaned and greased all the small components. The levers polished up nicely and look great installed.
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Jose's 1983 Trek 410 - Shift Levers
Before |
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Jose's 1983 Trek 410
Shift Levers Installed |
I installed the rear brake, I also had to install the rear reflector at the same time. I am one of the few but I like the old solar panel reflectors, this one isn't giant like some, but I have always liked them.
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Jose's 1983 Trek 410
Rear Brake caliper & Reflector
Installed |
I finished up the Trek 410 today. I ran the cables and housings and installed the seat post, saddle and chain. The bicycle tuned out pretty easy, the Trek shifts very smooth for friction shift and rides very smooth and fast. The freewheel is a little gritty and loud, so that will probably be on the replace list.
Going to start the last part of the restore with the rear wheel. The pie plate polished very nice and at the same time I installed the free wheel. The freewheel was gritty and very stiff, I worked oil into it to clean and get it moving better. It is rough but better then it was.
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Jose's 1983 Trek 410 - Pie Plate - Polished
Installed |
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| Jose's 1983 Trek 410 - Free Wheel - Installed |
Next I ran the cables and housings. I really like the white cable housings against the blue of the frame. The rear brake cable housing really looks good in the top tube cable brackets, the cable brackets where a little rough on the inside and its looks a lot better with the cable housing running through them.
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| Jose's 1983 Trek 410 - New Cables & Housings |
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| Jose's 1983 Trek 410 - Brake Cables - Installed |
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Jose's 1983 Trek 410
Rear Brake Cable Housing
Installed |
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| Jose's 1983 Trek 410 - Front Reflector & Brake Cable Installed |
Next on the list was the seat post and saddle. The new saddle is a lightly used Brooks B-17 narrow. The saddle tie had just a short piece left so I tied in a new blue tie. I really, really like the look of the Brooks on the Trek. The seat post also polished nicely. I also have always liked fluted seat posts.
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| Jose's 1983 Trek 410 - Old Saddle & New Brooks B-17 |
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Jose's 1983 Trek 410 - Brooks B-17 Installed
Seat Post Polished |
Last is the new white gel cork handle bar tape. I do this last and clean and wipe down the shop first so I would not get the handle bar tape dirty, especially white. I really like the white cork tape. It looks great against the blue frame and the new brake lever hoods. The cork tape went on very tight and fits really nice around the new brake lever hoods.
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Jose's 1983 Trek 410
New Gel Cork Handle Bar Tape |
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Jose's 1983 Trek 410 - Handle Bar Tape
Half Done |
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| Jose's 1983 Trek 410 - Handle Bar Tape - Complete |
Final photos below. Again, the Trek rides great, smooth and fast. Shifts great and is very lite with the Reynolds 531 tubing. Just got to maybe change out the free wheel at some point to quiet it down. Wish it was larger, it might ride even better for me, my 6'-4" does not fit on it at all.
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| Jose's 1983 Trek 410 - Bicycle Complete - Side View |
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| Jose's 1983 Trek 410 - Bicycle Finished - Angle View |
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Jose's 1983 Trek 410
Bicycle Finished
Front View |
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| Jose's 1983 Trek 410 - Finished Bicycle - Handle Bars |
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| Jose's 1983 Trek 410 - Bicycle Complete - Drive Train View |
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Jose's 1983 Trek 410
Bicycle Finished
Headset View |
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Jose's 1983 Trek 410
Bicycle Finished
Saddle View |
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Jose's 1983 Trek 410 - Bicycle Finished
Rear View |
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Jose's 1983 Trek 410 - Bicycle Finished
Experiment Cropped Photo |
hey john, i stumbled on your site and it gave me a lot of inspiration.
ReplyDeletethe frames look really nice after cleaning and polishing. i have got an old raleigh im fixing up for commuting, unfortunately, i can't make use of your services since i'm in ontario, but could you tell me what products i should consider for cleaning grease and gunk off, and also how to restore shine on aluminum parts?
thanks!
Hello Amir,
DeleteSorry, did not see the post right away.
There is a couple of ways to remove grease, not water and dish soap and a lot of scrubbing. A crock pot set on very low with some dish soap and then wipe the grease of easily, but do not put plastic parts or any parts you do not want decals to come off of in the crock pot, and recently I got a sonic cleaner that works well, but works better if I give the parts just a quick brushing off.
For aluminum parts I use a combination of polishing compounds on a bench top polishing wheel, otherwise for aluminum Mothers Mag and aluminum polish and a lot of elbow grease will give it a nice look but nothing like the polishing wheel.
Same for chrome but use Turtle wax chrome polish.
Do not use the Aluminum polish on the chrome and do not use the chrome polish on the aluminum, it can damage the metal surface.
Thanks for the interest,
John Z.