I hadn't really thought about just swapping out the steer tube, but I suppose it may be an option.
I was able to straighten the tube though but the forks are also bent sideways about an inch. I can make the needed adjustments to re-align the blades but it appears that the crown is also bent or shifted. I can make it function, but the crown will never be level again. I think that trying to un-bend the crown itself will likely break the casting.
What amazes me is that the frame has no damage. usually when a bike takes a hit hard enough to bend the forks this bad the tt and dt also end up bent.
Both crank arms also turned out to be bent, both were bent inward about 1/2", it wasn't as noticable on the right side but the left side had been hitting the rear stay for a long time.
The forks were likely like that for a long time, there's a wear mark on the tube above the bearing from where the cup collar was rubbing the tube for a long time.
I'm also trying to figure out whether or not the handle bar stem belongs with this bike, its a zero clearance fit with the steer tube, meaning it takes force to install and remove it, even after I ran a reamer down the tube to clean up any rust or high spots. I'll have to take about .005" off the inside of the steer tube to make the stem fit properly. My bars and stem do look the same as those on the burgundy bike shown above.
Part of what's going on with the stem is that the top not is rounded and when it's tightened down, it sort of crimps the top of the steer tube a bit.
There was also a bulge in the steer tube from over tightening the stem bolt but I was able to work that out with some minor heat and a hammer using a steel insert.
I did find a suitable replacement fork, a black fork off a Robin Hood Sports with a correct steer tube length, it looks the part but I still haven't given up on the original one yet.
I have a fork gauge, frame and fork straitening jigs, and just about all the dies to rethread forks from back in the day when I worked in a bike shop.
I've brazed frames but never unbrazed and replaced a steer tube, I guess the thought just never crossed my mind.
I considered heating up the forks as a whole, then trying to press the crown back into shape, then after all repairs, re-annealing the forks. Its not a bike I plan to sell, so anything I experiment with is for me. I would never sell something like this without it first having a lot of riding time on it after the repair to re-prove its strength.
I'm a big guy, usually if a bike can survive under my 350lbs it'll likely work just fine for most everyone else.
I cleaned the wheels yesterday too, it took a lot of wheel acid to strip away the rust. The wheels are straight, but the chrome is badly pitted and missing in a lot of places.
I pulled the rear hub apart and gave it a good cleaning and relube, and cleaned and repacked the front axle as well. Even the dry rotted old tires are holding air. I could have sworn we tried to pump up the tires on this thing when we moved it and neither tube would pump up and hold air for more than a few seconds, now they're holding air just fine.
The few minor bumps in the rims were fixable with a small clamp.
I will have to get out my air brush and touch up the frame, the bottom of the top tube looked pretty scary but after sanding it, the rust sort of fell away and really didn't show any pitting. I'm thinking that something had to be laying on the top tube at some point that rusted to it, maybe an old chain or something.
I should be able to dust in the missing paint and make it look decent without a full repaint, I don't want to lose the decals. It'll never be new again but I'm seeing that it can at least become an occasional rider again rather than a parts bike.
The rear hub is mint, if it were 40h, I think I may have just taken it for another project of mine.
The decision now is whether to go with the english fork or to keep trying to fix the one on the bike, and whether or not to lace up a pair of new rims. I have a pair of nearly identical rims here that are new old stock but their made in Italy. No clue what they were for but they're the exact profile and shape. I see no markings at all on the Burger's original rims.
The original rims didn't respond at all to the Evapo-Rust from Harbor Freight. I needed to resort to a pretty strong mix of acids to get the rust off. Its a mix of hydroflouric. sulfuric, and phosphoric acids mixed with a light detergent so it don't evaporate to quickly. It eats rust fast but if left on too long it'll do damage.
I'm not sure why I'm doing all this, I suppose because its an oddity of a bike here. The bike doesn't really fit me, but I really want to see how it rides. I don't think I've had a bike from Holland before. It also really doesn't have many parts to donate to any of my other projects.
May I ask what brakes are on your bike? Mine has an Altenburger alloy caliper in the rear and a Raleigh caliper in the front. Since the rear lever and cable don't match the rest of the bike, I'm guessing the rear caliper was swapped over from something else at some point. it seems odd that it would have a Raleigh made front caliper too, but I find it odd that someone would change both calipers.
My fork doesn't look like yours either, my take is that your bike is a bit older having the BSA rear hub, so that may well mean they changed forks in the 5 or 6 years between the two bikes. The lack of an actual headbadge on yours is interesting as well.
In reality, I really have no idea what is original to this bike or not. The forks and stem don't seem to belong together, the damage to the fork didn't make it so much smaller than it needs machining to work with the stem. The stem and bars look the same as your bike though, making the fork the odd part out. My headset is also different from yours, its a mix style wise of an American Wald headset with a spanner type top nut common on so many Dutch and German youth bikes I've seen.
The fact that all the threading on this thing is American or English, with most of the hardware being American threaded with square nuts but with completely odd hex sizes also makes me wonder. For example, the seat and stem clamp nuts are not 13 or 14 mm. The nuts which are in nice shape measure .540", which doesn't correlate to any wrench size. (Including Whitworth). I have a 1/4W wrench, which measures about .525', and all sort of vintage bike tools but nothing fits anything on this bike.
Nearly all fasteners are backed up with a lock nut, thus things like the fenders are screwed onto threaded braze ons or inserts, then backed up with a square lock nut. The fenders, chainguard, and cable clamps are done this way. The stem and handle bars are also of their own measurements being slightly larger than what's used on the more common British bikes.
The front hub has no markings, its chrome plated and made up of several stampings and uses basically looks like a higher quality Wald type axle and cones. As if they just super chrome plated a cheap Wald type hub to make it match the much nicer SA rear hub.
The grips had to be cut off, they were literally melted to the bars. one had some pretty bad road rash so I didn't lose much and both were US made Tru Grip branded replacements from long ago. The shifter is also non original and marked 'Japan' on the back. I'm thinking it may just get a vintage twist grip set up which will solve the shifter and grip issue at the same time and make use of a clean used grip shift set I've had taking up space on the shelf for 20 or so years.
The frame has a rattle in the top tube, further inspection shows that both the headtube and seat tube lugs have only a 1/4" opening into the tube, just enough to get a borescope into the tube. There's what appears to be a dime laying in the tube. The dime sizes coin has a large '10' with a crown above it. its too large to be removed without damaging the frame. It had to be tossed in there before the tubes were assembled. The tubing is also quite crudely seamed and welded when viewed from the inside. They no doubt were rolling their own tubing when they made these bikes, much the way Raleigh did with the bikes built in Nottingham.