To pick up from the last post, here is the Roma as it arrived after getting out of the shipping box and a quick assembly to check it all out before tearing it down for a very gentle restoration. I am still overwhelmed with the near perfect condition of this bike, 55 years after it rolled out of the Legnano factory.

And here we are pretty much fully assembled wth the exception of the headset (to come) and the fixed cup on the bottom bracket that I will leave in place as I can clean it from the other side that has been removed. First job was to get out the hairdryer and remove the reflective tape from the front forks and rear stays. Fortunately the previous owner considered what he was doing and did not adhere the tape to any of the painted surfaces.

After that I set about carefully cleaning the frame. I find that the Lysol brand wet wipes do a great job without affecting the somewhat fragile Lizard Yellow paint. As I have commented before, just go at easy and check the wipe to make sure it is not disturbing the paint. Never use any harsh cleaner, particularly anything that has a solvent base or car wax with abrasive elements.

In addition to the paint, the chrome plating is also near flawless and here you can use some 0000 steel wool if needed and a solvent cleaner, just stay clear of the paint and wipe it down thoroughly with the Lysol wipes afterwards to remove an solvent trace. And wash your hands also, or change our gloves, to make sure you don’t transfer anything to the painted surfaces.

With the frame cleaned up and a couple of coats of Mother’s Carnuba (non abrasive wax) I decided to move on to the Nuovo Record crankset. The cranks, like the entire bike, are in flawless condition with no road rash on the bottom of the crank arms or on the side of the arms from the toe clip straps. Clearly this bike saw very little time on the road.

The cranks were fitted with a 52T outer ring and a 49T inner ring which I found to be very odd for 1970 as the classic half-step gearing was long gone with the advent of the Campy NR 141 bcd crankset and NR rear derailleur. You would have needed some good legs to ride the combination or some pretty flat terrain most days.

I had a spanky new Campy 43T chainring that was still sealed up in the wrapper from back in the day, so this was a fitting opportunity to dig it out of the parts bin and put it to good use and a more realistic setup for a mix of terrain. The 52T outer chainring was in fine form with very little wear.

You can see in the image above the as new condition of the original paint. The drive side chainstay had no chips or slap marks from the chain and the bottom bracket was also untouched from a chain jumping off the inner ring.

A good time to make a comment on the lizard yellow Legnano paint. It does seem that they may have made a change in the chemistry about this time as overall the paint seems much more durable than finishes from earlier years. And it is not quite as translucent as earlier finishes, however the colour is the same shade and retains almost the same iridescent quality of the earlier years. Perhaps this was the beginning of the environmental and health concerns with using solvent based paints?

Moving on to the headset, I left the upper and lower cups in place and throughly cleaned them before adding new waterproof grease and reassembling the forks. The chrome headlugs needed a bit of cleanup with 0000 steel wool but very minimal. Both the bottom bracket and headset races had very little wear if any as well as what may have been the original white Campy grease.

And that’s pretty much it for Day 1 of the tear down. The condition of this bike is such that I almost felt like the clock had been wound back 50 years and I was assembling this Roma for the first time. More to come next weekend when I am free of the day job.

Back at it on a very cold and snowy holiday weekend

It’s a three day holiday weekend in Toronto and the below zero temps have continued as well as being pounded with upwards of 30cm of snow. Heavy snow tends bring an overall quiet to the city and a perfect calm to tuck into working on old bikes.

So moving on it was time to clean up the wheels and tear down the classic high flange Campagnolo Record hubs. The wheels were still spinning freely however the old Campy grease was probably well dried up and I was correct. With the axle dismantled it is also a good time to clean up the hubs and spokes.

As you can see in the image above, there is little if any wear on the bearing cones. The lock nuts on the front are also date stamped ’69’ for the year 1969. Although I have dated this Roma to 1970, perhaps late 1969, it is not unusual for Campy date stamps to predate the production year as part inventory may have hung around for a year or two before being built up.

And here with the hub fully cleaned, greased, reset and mounted on the front forks. The original Alpina double-butted spokes (company founded in 1926) also received a light clean up with some 0000 steel wool and Wenol metal polish. Definitely a bit of painstaking work and at the end of it all my fingers were a bit tired and numb, however the sparkle at the finish line is a just reward.

As with the rest of this Roma, the Fiamme rims were in great condition and it didn’t take much work with some Wenol polishing compound to bring them back to life. There is a post about the changes to the engravings and decals on Fiamme rims over the years that you can find here. And by that account these rims were produced in the 60s, still with the Brevetto Longhi on the decal to respect the patent, however removed from the engraving. The engraving still includes “Made in Italy”, later reduced to just “Italy” in the late 60s or perhaps at the very start of the 70s, however the specifics are not really clear from what I have been able to determine.

And the front wheel completed. Then on to the rear wheel with the same disassembly, cleaning up of all the parts, new lubricant and reset the bearings. Fortunately the Everest freewheel loosened itself easily as sometimes they can be a bit of a bear to get off.

Once again the bearing cones showed very little wear although there was not much left of the original white Campy grease. And perhaps not a total surprise, but unlike the front hub locknuts that are engraved ’69, the rear locknuts are stamped ’68 having been produced a year earlier. Keep in mind that the Campy high flange Record hubs were introduced in 1958 and continued on well into the mid 1980s virtually unchanged, with the exception of the word ‘Record’ being added to the barrel of the hub in the mid 1960s. That said, there was no reason whatsoever to change up old inventory for the sake of date stamps on the lock nuts. In fact I doubt it even crossed anyone’s mind at the time.

Freewheel mounted and the finished wheel back on the bike for a final cleanup.

A fresh set of Vittoria ‘Rally’ tubular tires mounted and the wheels are complete.

The bike came to me fitted with a Cinelli No.1 Unicantor leather wrapped saddle, the only non-production part on this Roma. The production bike would have been fitted with a Brooks Professional saddle and there was one in the parts bin that had been acquired a number of years ago, perhaps waiting for just such a project.

To conclude this long, snowy weekend, it was time to do some more fiddly work and dismantle the pedals, clean out the old grease, repack and reset the bearings and give them a light hand polish all over with Wenol. The absence of any wear marks on the barrels of the pedals attested once again how little this bike had been ridden and not a single bit of road rash on the outer ends of the cables. In fact, these pedals looked like they just came out of the box . . . 55 years later!

So with all of the bearings on the bike now cleaned, packed and reset, the heavy lifting on this beautiful Roma is completed. I will come back next time to begin setting up the drive train and the brakes.

Getting close to being finished with a little more time required to clean up the mudguards and get them mounted.

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