  | Elsa and I both like having side projects to work on, from furniture or reupholstering to working on old bikes. This time, we found a Schwinn Le Tour10 speed bike on Craigslist. From photos, it didn't look too rough, and would be an easy polish job. The seller said he had bought it from a guy who fixes up old bikes for fun, but didn't ride it much. I took it home for $120, and as you can see below, after a wipe down, the bike ended up being a bit rougher than we expected, with some rust, "fixed" paint cracks and gouges, and road grime and grease everywhere. |
| According to this site, the bike is a 1974 (October, 1974, to be exact) Japanese-made Le Tour. Here is a catalog, showing the brand new Le Tour; "Lightweight, agile, and loaded with fine quality". The groupset is all "Schwinn Approved", which was manufactured by Shimano, and could be considered the prelude to official Shimano components. The bike was outfitted with safety brakes, stem mounted shifters, and gumwall tires. |  |
After tearing down the entire bike, I soaked most of the small parts in Simple Green overnight to breakdown most of the junk. Over a few days, I took apart each piece and gave everything a through cleaning, polishing with steel wool and brasso, then regreased. Some of the silver parts needed to be corrected with 800 and 2000 grit wet sanding. The wheels were pulled apart and all the bearings checked and repacked, then the wheels were trued.
Once all the parts were clean, the frame was sanded and prepared for paint. Originally, we thought about stripping the paint and leaving the frame polished steel, however we didn't like how the fork came out after stripping. Instead, we decided on a "British Racing Green" paint with tan accents.
The frame was preped with 220 grit sandpaper, then 800 grit sandpaper. After a wipe-down with denatured alcohol, the frame was primed with Dupli-color automotive primer, and sanded with 1000 grit to knock down any rough areas. All painting was done using a Harbor Freight Tools spray gun ($12 on their site right now).
The frame was preped with 220 grit sandpaper, then 800 grit sandpaper. After a wipe-down with denatured alcohol, the frame was primed with Dupli-color automotive primer, and sanded with 1000 grit to knock down any rough areas. All painting was done using a Harbor Freight Tools spray gun ($12 on their site right now).
Then came the green. We were a little worried, since this was just some Pepboys paint, and didn't expect great results. The paint has a nice fleck to it and really surprised us, especially after the clear coat was on. Besides good prep work, the clear coat was the most important step, and I would highly recommend putting MUCH MORE clear coat on than you think you need. It will really help the paint 'pop' once it's dry, and give it that high quality, glossy finish. Now was the hard part... waiting two days for the paint to harden before reassembly.
And here is the final product. It's been too snowy and cold to get any really good pictures, but I'm hoping to get it out soon so that the green will really pop in the sun.
I hope this has helped you with your own bike restorations. If you have any questions, feel free to contact me. I'd also love to see bikes you've worked on as well! Send me photos and I will add them to the blurb!
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