Cannondale Build

I picked up an old Cannondale frame + a box of parts for free. The frame is a little beat up, and it has hideous paint. I'm planning to do a cheap-ish road bike build for bombing around the suburbs.

I started by stripping off what parts it has and roughing up the paint for a new, hopefully prettier coat.

Looks like fun! Check over the frame carefully before you get too deep. Not a common problem, but also not unheard of for those to crack at the headtube or rear dropouts. If it is in decent shape, they can build up into a nice light bike.

What model is it? The rear dropout should be a breakaway. Easy fix if it's busted. These are great frames.

Cool build!

Looks like it has suffered chain suck more than once, so check out that area missing paint on the chainstay for super deep gouges or hairline cracks. The keyhole at the seat post area and the underside of the headtube/downtube junction are also common places for cracks in older aluminum frames.

Not sure how much experience you have psinting bike frames, but definitely tape off the bottom bracket faces and the dropouts ( places where the wheels clamp into the frame. Once the wheel is clamped it will crack the paint anyway, plus your wheel won't stay as tight ( bad news ).

Can't wait to see the finished bike!

Thanks for all the tips! The bike has had some chain strike, but nothing too bad. It looks worse in the pictures because I was doing some exploratory sanding to see if the crappy paint was hiding anything terrible. Looks OK so far, but there is some rubbing inside one of the chainstays. It's within my tolerance for risk.

If the tire currently rubs the chainstay, it might be a good idea to have the frame and dropouts checked for alignment. At my bike shop we would check those tolerances and give verbal estimates for free. Better to do this before paint. Also, take the rear wheel with you so it can be checked for true, tension and dish.

I don't know if anything currently rubs the chainstay - it didn't come with any wheels. It looks straight, but it's hard to say for sure without anything to mount up. Once I get some road rims + tires I'll see if they rub or if it has just had a strange life.

I've got some time before I get to paint, I need to wait for the rain to quit. It could be a month

those are kewl old frames... if I recall correctly some bike mag back in the day rated those as the most harsh riding frames ever.

I also always wondered about the design of the rear dropouts... IMHO it seems a little silly to cantilever the rear drop outs out behind the seat stays like they did... but I know they sold tons and plenty are still running around and was high tech stuff back in the day.

so what kind of build are you thinking about? I've got a late 90's klein frame i'm thinking about how to use, i'm considering a riser bar SS setup as Its not something i'd every really use as I prefer my steel frames for real riding (and the fact that they'll fit a real tire)

In reply to donalson:

The frame is very stiff. Easily the stiffest bike I own. I fully expect it to punch me in the junk while riding... I was debating getting a cheapie carbon fork (to soften the blows), but I figured I'd try it out in a stock-ish configuration first. Now that you mention it, the dropouts are sort of funny. They're really beefy in a way that doesn't show up well in photos. The whole bike is kind of late 80's, early 90's space age.

As far as build style goes, I'm going with the original 7x2 speeds (not sure what for ratios yet), lightly cleaned 20 year old Shimano 105 components and whatever extra bits and pieces I find in my garage.

The project has slowed while I wait for wheels to ship up here. I couldn't find any narrow enough hubs in town and the frame is far to stiff to even think about bending for more modern sizes.

I noticed it has a stuck bolt in a water bottle holder rivnut. The rivnut has broken free, so I'm debating grinding it out and having the rivnut rattle in the frame forever or living with a bolt sticking out.

Cool! 126mm rear spacing?

If you decide to grind it out; a few well-placed drops of epoxy can help with the rattles. If you can't roll the insert to an accessible location, you may be able to roll it to a low spot and flow in some slow-set glue to the same low point to capture it. A good bike shop can replace the rivnut for you if you lack the M5 rivnut tool.

as I recall you can usually remove a spacer (or place a smaller one) in many of the shimano hub axles but might require shaving a bit of the outside of the axle so the QR can properly clamp... might be worth researching a bit more.

for shifting... if you are wanting brifters you could take a look into shimergo... campy 10 spd shifters match 8spd... and 8spd is the same (or very close depending on what brand cassette you use) to 7spd spacing that you could use the campy shifter... and you can get the lower end version for under $100 new... I've got a set in my garage waiting to go onto my '83 trek 560 9spd bike (requires rerouting the cable to shift properly on 9spd)

but vintage 105 would be very fitting along with the DT shifters and stuff

This is a bit of a diversion, but I've got to post my other latest bike:

Supposedly bike parts await at the post office, so more on the Cannondale this weekend

^Cool! I'm guessing that's a Schwinn De Luxe Twinn five speed... what year?

In reply to Woody:

You are spot on with the ID. I think it is a '72 or '73.

It has a regular front brake and a rear drum brake. I've read that the rear is a 'drag brake,' but by modern standards both brakes are drag brakes. It starts like a freight train (slow), cruises like a freight train (pretty easy) and stops like a freight train (plan ahead!). It's pretty funny to ride hard, because vigorous pedal pumping sets up a resonance at two different frequencies - one for the frame and one for the extra springy seats. I imagine we look pretty funny cycling past.

The only thing I'm planning on changing is upgrading the brake pads. I'd like to add an additional brake the rear wheel, but I'm not sure if it's set up to accept one without brazing or drilling.

I don't think that they came with wheel reflectors until '75 but the yellow seems like a much earlier color.

My dad had one of those seats on a '72 Suburban. He loved it but it weighed about 40 pounds.

Schwinn date codes:

http://www.angelfire.com/rant/allday101/SchwinnCodes4.html

NUMBERING SYSTEM: THE FIRST "LETTER" IS THE MONTH, THE SECOND "LETTER" IS THE YEAR. THE LETTERS " I " and " O " ARE SKIPPED TO AVOID CONFUSION WITH NUMBERS "ONE" and "ZERO".

In reply to Woody:

Looks like it is from March of '73

We had a little break in the weather, so I got some painting in and started putting parts on the frame:

I ran into a little trouble with Cannondale's verdammt braze on. My frame didn't come with one, they come in two sizes and the only one I could track down was the wrong size. I need the short one, I guess, because the long one shoves the front derailleur into the chain regardless of adjustment. I think I'm going to order a Nova braze on and see if I can drill holes in the appropriate spot. You can also see that I'm waiting on a rivnut.

On the plus side, the rear shifts great! Maybe I'll just rock 7 speeds and walk up hills

looks good reminds me of some of the crazy anno jobs from back int he 90's :)

... as for the 7 speed... you should be able to find an 11-28 casette still... plenty out back... if ya need more goto a compact or my preferred a triple

I've got the 7 speed all sorted out, it's my front derailleur braze on that is giving me fits...