1990's Fuji

It was crusty but the tear down did not take long on this one, nothing was rusted stuck so it was a pretty easy take down. I did get a few nice parts off this one that I will be re-using. This is a very unique stem that I plan on re-using on the build for Joe, and it already polishied up pretty nice. He wants a simple build without gears so I won't be reusing these friction shifters but I will definately be keeping them for something later, these are getting harder to find

This bike is going to be a very simple build. The plan is to use a Sturmey Archer 3 speed with a coaster brake on the rear and likely no front brake. Joe wants it to be a clean simple build. The downside about using a frame from the 90s for a simple build is they have cantilever style brakes with huge studs brazed on for pivot points on the fork and on the rear. To keep a clean build I had to torch these off and sand everything flat to clean it up on the frame and on the fork.

Now that the brake mounts are cut off the frame can be smoothed out for a better, more modern look. After much sanding and prep cleaning the frame was then primed and ready for paint.

After about 6 coats of black laquer we are ready to start polishing it out. This is what really makes the difference. It is very possible to get a high end finish with spray laquer, it just takes a lot of patience and a lot of coats followed by a lot of sanding and polishing.

Finally the time comes to start assembly!  I put a touch of red on the brake mount in the rear as just a small accent.  Notice how close the wheels fit. For the look I was going for I went with 700C wheels on a 26" wheel-ed frame,  same as on the Madison frame bike. 

Next up I needed to find a good crank-set. This bike was originally trail ridden and the crank-set it had was pretty beat up. I was hoping to find a vintage, aluminum Sugino that I could polish out. I wanted the shiny crank to add a bit of contrast and flash against all the black so this didn't end up looking like Darth Vader's bike.   I got lucky on this one actually, because a friend texted me that a 90's  Schwinn was out on the curb just a few blocks from my house and it was full of good, salvageable parts that just needed some love.  I ended up finding not only the crank I was looking for but also a good kickstand that happened to be exactly the right height. It took a bit of polishing but I got it shined out.  I wanted to convert it from a dual ring to a single, so I cut flats on a few washers to get them to perfectly fit and bam-  one very good looking polished out crankset. And all it cost was a morning of polishing and cleaning.

The new owner of this bike came over to take a peek,  he indicated he wanted a wider more comfortable seat and a rear rack. I found a cloud 9 spring seat on Modern Bike.com and the rack I have had in my collection for a while. It's one of my favorites and I always look for them.  It's a cast aluminum Pletscher rack made in Switzerland.  Every so often I find one of these and I always snatch them up, they are a much higher quality than your run of the mill Chinese made aluminum rack - and they are still making them today.

Next step was to get the three speed Sturmey rear wheel installed and set up the linkage. If you follow the directions it's a pretty straight forward process.  After that it's just fitting the chain and the new rack- which I mounted to the existing cantilever brake cable mount.

Here it is all assembled.  I really like how this one turned out.  This Fuji will be on the road for many years to come now with a new lease on life.