Here is your first glimpse at the new frame color.

Bottom bracket installed.

Front fork.

Wheels on.

Crank, chain, seat post, and seat.

Chain line…I think it worked out well.

Now I just need to figure out what to do about my stem and handlebars.

Frustration #1:
This was my fault.  I didn’t ask them to mask off the threads for the bottom bracket when they did the powder coating.  I guess I thought I would be able to turn it in there and it would just chew it up.  Well, the coating is really tough and my lame plan didn’t work.  I ended up having to use Aircraft Remover to get it all out of there.  I masked off the outer portion of the frame, but Aircraft Remover is such nasty stuff that it seeped its way through and ruined some small areas of the powder coating.  Most of it is on the bottom of the frame and around the rim of where the bottom bracket attaches.  It’s pretty small and I’m sure no one will ever notice, but I’m still not happy.  Lesson learned.

Frustration #2:
The tubes won’t fit within the tires.  It’s in a small area right where the valve stem is on both wheels, but I know it’s not right and I wasn’t able to correct it last night.  I thought airing it up with a compressor and working the tube would fix it, but that didn’t work.  I’m not sure if I can fix it.  I know I need to though.  Why is it in the exact same area on both wheels?

Frustration #3:
The stem adaptor I bought doesn’t fit down the head tube of the frame.  I thought all of these things were universal fit?  Does that mean I need to switch back to a quill stem?

Edit: Now that I look at it, it seems that I ordered a 1-1/8″ stem adaptor and I likely needed a 1″.  I’m taking this time to question my stem/handlebar choice to see if I should get something different.

I’m relatively happy with the handlebars. They don’t have any overpowering logos. They are pretty straight too. Ideally I would have liked something straight and the same diameter throughout. I’m not sure why I couldn’t find what I was looking for. I think that is a pretty simple request.

I ended up cutting 2″ off of each end of the bars to make them shorter. Again, I won’t know exactly how that will be until they are installed on the bike.

The grips are ok. I thought they might compliment the black leather seat, but they don’t have the same shine to them. Again, I wanted something simple and black, but that wasn’t as easy to find as I thought. I can always swap them out if I decide I don’t like them when the bike is complete.

I had no idea when I started this project that my extensive collection of mechanics tools wouldn’t cut it for working on a bike. I was able to disassemble the bike in about 10 minutes with the tools that I had, but when I purchased my new parts I realized the tools I used to take the bike apart weren’t going to work. In the picture above you can see the $10 bottom bracket tool I had to buy. I think that will make assembly a lot easier. And below you can see the cog/lockring tool I bought. It worked so well that I was very glad I spent the money to buy the right tool for the application. I figure I could have gotten away with using the tools I had, but this made it super easy.

I wasn’t sure what I was going to do for pedals either, but after looking around on Wheel and Sprocket’s ebay store, I came across of pedals from the same company that makes the cranks.  Again, they are simple, they come in black, they match, and they aren’t too expensive.  I think this setup is going to work out well.

I ordered a Weinmann Deep-V wheelset.  I wanted something that was black on black and didn’t have a machined surface for brakes.  These wheels were really the ones I could find that met that criteria and had a reasonable price.  I bought them on ebay and used the live.com discount to get the price down even further.

I also ordered a set of take off Kenda K125 700c x 25c tires and tubes on ebay to keep the price low.  I picked those up for about $31 shipped.  Not too bad.

Sorry for the lack of pictures.  I’m sure I’ll be more into that when I get the frame back and start assembling the parts.

It’s a $25 Sekai 400 that I picked up on craigslist.  Nice.