Stripdown and Preparation – wheels far better than expected

The first step was to strip the bike of all unnecessary parts and get the frame ready for prepping and painting.  I went over to the farm one Saturday morning and gave the bike a good clean before stripping it of its mudguards, carrier, saddle, seatpost, wheels etc.  I left the handlebars and stem intact just to make it easier to stand the bike upside down whilst working on it.  At this stage I was unsure how much of the running gear could be salvaged.  The chunky rubber pedals would definitely have to go but the cranks themselves, chainring, and even the chain itself were in surprisingly good condition and cleaned up really well.

The real surprise was the condition of the wheels.  Once cleaned and polished they revealed a chrome finish which was almost like new.  So my original plan to paint the wheel rims black changed when I saw these: they would keep their nice original chromed finish even though it marginally compromised the vintage look.

Incidentally I used methylated spirits and old toothbrushes to clean all the gunk off the bike, followed by warm soapy water.  The wheels were polished using Autoglym chrome cleaner followed by wax polish.

The biggest challenge was removing the old pedals.  As always seems to happen, one came off fairly easily (after a good soak in WD40) but the other refused to budge for days.  Part of the problem was in securing the frame in a way that I could get enough leverage to attack the damn thing.  It took several generous soakings in 3 in 1 oil and WD40 plus the ingenious construction of a ‘double lever’ tool involving 2 spanners and a length of pipe before it would budge.   Finally removing that pedal was one of the highlights of the project – it meant I could salvage the rest of the drive train which was all in good workable condition despite the age.  
 
Next step was to rub down the frame ready for painting.  There was also a number of lugs for mudguards and chainguards etc which were hacksawed off before being filed and smoothed down.  The process of rubbing down the paintwork was actually easier than expected.  Finally the chaingear and steering head were masked off and the frame was ready for painting.