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This week I started a restoration of Emmett’s Bianchi Aeros. The bike comes from the early 90’s. The obvious is it needs wheels along with new cables and housings and bar tape. Emmett has a cool black and white theme picked out. He is looking for black rim 700c wheels and we will put black housing and bar tape on.
The bike is very interesting. It has a touring geometry, a touring stem and a triple crank. This will be a pretty comfortable fast ride.
Bianchi – Stem & Handle Bars
I started by stripping the frame of the components. The frame is very greasy and dull but it looks in good shape, very few chips or scratches. The bottom bracket gave me some trouble, it was locked in place. I did not want to use the heat wrench technique because that would mare the paint. After a good amount of trying to loosen it it broke free. I cost me some badly cut and bruised knuckles.
With the frame stripped of components I started to clean the frame. The dirt and grease cleaned fairly easily. With the frame cleaned I polished it. I am pleased with the results, just a few chips and scratches, I am hoping to have a color that matches the off colored white.
Bianchi – Frame – Polished
I put the headset and bottom bracket components in the crock pot with soapy water on low. The components have a thick sticky grease on everything. It the stickiest grease I have ever seen. Very difficult to clean. I soak the parts in the crock pot, take them out and wipe them down and soak them again. I am on round eight of this. I am not sure what kind of grease it is, but I have not come across it before.
Bianchi – Headset & Bottom Bracket
While I am waiting for the headset and bottom bracket components to soak I started work on the stem and handle bars. I removed the old bar tape, removed one brake lever and separated the stem from the bars. The stem polished beautifully, I am very happy with the results. It will surly shine bright on the bike.
Next I polished the handle bars. The bars are in great shape, most bars this age are badly scratched from removing the bars from the stem. But these bars are in great shape, they polished up very nice.
Bianchi – Handle Bars Polished
Next I started work on the brake levers. The levers have white hoods that are very dirty, I was a little worried that they would not clean up well and would need to be replaced. With a lot of elbow grease and cleaner they came out pretty nice. Well worth the time.
Bianchi – Brake Levers
That is where the bike stands as of now. When the headset and bottom bracket components are finished soaking things will move along fast. Will post as things move along.
Today the headset and bottom bracket components finally cleaned up. I polished out the components and installed both the headset and bottom bracket. With the headset complete I installed the stem and handle bars. Things really look nice polished up. I have the crank set soaking in soapy water, not in the crock pot though. the crank should be ready tomorrow. I also have the derailleurs and brakes soaking in the soapy water.
Bianchi – To This Point
I have been a little slow the last two days, my sister and my new nephew are visiting from Miami. I finished of the crank today, I disassembled the crank into all 25 pieces. The crank polished very nicely. It is a very nice Suguno crank. I used one just like this on a 1985 Cannondale ST-500 I put nearly 40,000 miles on. I miss that bike and I am looking for the same frame to recreate it. I should have never sold it.
Bianchi – Crank – Polished & Installed
Tomorrow I will finished of the derailleurs and start the brakes. From there I will run the new Housings and cables and then it is mainly waiting on the wheels to arrive.
Bianchi – Derailleurs
Today I finished the derailleurs, brakes, seat post and bolt and installed the second brake lever. I can’t do much more then that until Emmett receives the wheels. Tomorrow I will remove the down tube decal and the chain stay guard Emmett has new Bianchi decals that are a better fit for the black and white theme. I was going to remove them today, but at the start I ran out of Goo Gone and will need to get some in the morning.
Bianchi – Rear Derailleur – Installed
With the brakes and Derailleurs complete I polished the seat post and seat post bolt. They both polished nicely and look good installed.
Emmett brought over the wheels and freewheel this weekend. Very nice high end Bianchi wheels and some nice white striped tires.
I started with the front wheel. Mainly just cleaning up a little old grease and packing new grease. I really like the quality of these wheels, the bearing surfaces are chromed and show just a little wear. With the front hub overhauled I trued the front wheel, which was almost perfect to start, and installed the new tube and tire. Looks good with the white stripe.
Bianchi – Front Wheel – Complete & Installed
With the front wheel complete I moved on to the rear wheel. The wheel came with a six speed freewheel. This is going to be replaced with a seven speed freewheel to go with the seven speed index shifters. I had a heck of a time getting the old freewheel off. Someone in the past did not grease the threads before installation so the freewheel and hub corroded together. I tried with a large wrench, I also tired a vise and using the wheel at the wrench. I did not want to apply a lot of force in the vise because I did not want to damage the wheel. I ended up holding the freewheel socket in place with the skewer and carefully using a 3 foot crescent wrench. The freewheel broke loose with just a small amount of force protecting the wheel.
With the freewheel switched out, with a generous amount of grease, I trued the wheel and installed the new tube and tire. The wheel was badly out of true with a curb dent in the rim. I was able to fix the dent only slightly with different pliers. I did not want to wreck the rim more. The dent is still there, but a little better. I really like the the white tire combination.
Bianchi – Rear Wheel – Installed
From here I tuned the brakes and ran the shift cables. I would have been done with the bike today, but I am having a little trouble getting the rear derailleur and new freewheel to shift well. I ran out of time for today, so tomorrow I will finish things off.
Thanks Emmett for bring me the bike. It was a fun project and I like the choices you made.
