Fat Boab

Ta muchly!

Are through seat bolts still widely available from local bike shops (frame below)?

Ta muchly. Sort of a British racing green..... Back-in-the-day a very modern and desirable colour, as I recollect. Now, even more so! Just a bit more TLC required, need to make a drop-bolt for the rear caliper and some odds and sods (down tube protector eventually!), and then test-ride time. Strangely the last time I rode it, about 2 years ago, in the Cradle 2 okes, riding in the opposite direction, rubber-necked me and nearly crashed......

Some work-in-progress pictures of my 1982 Raleigh Royal project. As suggested elsewhere it is indeed amazing what you can achieve with sunlight, paraffin, al foil, brasso, a girlfriend who could colour-match for Plascon, nail-varnish, wax and a lot of elbow grease!

The thing is I struggle to take Chris O'Dowd seriously - he's a great comedy actor - as Walsh. Maybe it is a comedy?

As tough as it sounds?

I'd guess Karen Robertson......

My downtube shifters are Suntour - ratchet one way and friction the other. Or as I used to tell me mates, "I've got combined friction and indexed shifters!" I'm hoping to use them on the MTB groupset, but only time will tell whether the shifters have the pull range, as you suggest. The rear derailleur should be ok as I was running an 8-speed road block with the original shifters, even though the original bike was 2x5 speed, so one more sprocket hopefully won't cause a problem. Front mech might be a differing story as the MTB crankset is a triple and the original was a road double. Anyway all interesting potential problems to play with when the rebuild starts.....!

Looks very nice. I'm going through a similar project - also with my first bike - but adding a MTB group set to make touring a bit easier. It's certainly a pleasure to have friction shifters to accommodate whatever speed drivetrain, rather than have to use specific STIs! I wonder how long it will take me to remember to reach down to change gear rather than flick the brake lever?! ;-)

Ta muchly - will feedback.

Ta muchly for the advice - will feedback.

Apologies if my query is a little off-topic, but this thread and the participants seems the best placed to offer some words of advice.... I am starting a small project to return my 1982 Raleigh Royal, which has stood for a number of years, to its original function, namely touring. My question relates to the frame. I'm not looking to strip and re-paint, re-decal etc, as the condition isn't too bad; anyway I'm on a tight budget. But I'd rather clean up and perhaps touch-up some chips to make the most of the frame as-is. How should I go about cleaning, touching-up and polishing the frame? Anything more than gentle-washing with warm soapy water, a bit of t-cutting and waxing? Any advice would be much appreciated.....