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First Restoration Attempt 1955 Black Phantom

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babycalfs

Look Ma, No Hands!
Hey all,
I'm still very new around here and just got into the vintage bike world. I just purchased five bikes from my grandfather's family estate auction recently and I'm slowly cleaning them up and learning as I go. I'm sending a lot of my high maintenance questions to a fellow Caber but I wanted to share my first project that took me about 3 weeks to tear down and put back together. I'm a psych major and very mechanically challenged so all the wrench turning and problem solving associated with this doesn't come naturally to me. But here's my beginning pics.

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I've never torn anything down before so I took a lot of pictures (I think 97 or them to make it through the first process). While my contact has suggested an OA bath, I was a little nervous and mostly just stuck to learning the mechanics the first time around and rubbing a lot of aluminum foil on chrome.

Out of all the bikes that I purchased, this 1955 Phantom seemed like a good first project because they're fairly common and I was fine with making a few mistakes along the line.

Here's some before and after shots
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As well as the process of me putting this poor thing back together (Again, no clue what I was doing:(
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As well as one final shot of it in the same place that it started:

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It still needs a few parts to my knowledge. I'm not sure what kind of pedals are on there but they're not right so I'm gonna scope out some Schwinn pedals. Also, please ignore that squirrely tire cap. I have a repo Phantom light I could put on it but I'm not rushing into that yet. I'm not sure about that seat though. If anyone has feedback on that thing. It's in pretty good shape but doesn't look like my other repo seats. Here's a close up from Before I started the clean up.
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I'm currently tearing part my first bike as a kid from back in the 80's and I'm likely going to try and practice using an OA bath on that before I come back to this project again. I'd like to ultimately do a full OA bath on this to detail it up a bit as well as clean up some of the nuts and bolts on it. If anyone has feedback or suggestions, I take criticism pretty well.
 
Hey all,
I'm still very new around here and just got into the vintage bike world. I just purchased five bikes from my grandfather's family estate auction recently and I'm slowly cleaning them up and learning as I go. I'm sending a lot of my high maintenance questions to a fellow Caber but I wanted to share my first project that took me about 3 weeks to tear down and put back together. I'm a psych major and very mechanically challenged so all the wrench turning and problem solving associated with this doesn't come naturally to me. But here's my beginning pics.

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I've never torn anything down before so I took a lot of pictures (I think 97 or them to make it through the first process). While my contact has suggested an OA bath, I was a little nervous and mostly just stuck to learning the mechanics the first time around and rubbing a lot of aluminum foil on chrome.

Out of all the bikes that I purchased, this 1955 Phantom seemed like a good first project because they're fairly common and I was fine with making a few mistakes along the line.

Here's some before and after shots
View attachment 1646317

View attachment 1646318

View attachment 1646319

View attachment 1646320

As well as the process of me putting this poor thing back together (Again, no clue what I was doing:(
View attachment 1646321

View attachment 1646322
View attachment 1646323

As well as one final shot of it in the same place that it started:

View attachment 1646324

It still needs a few parts to my knowledge. I'm not sure what kind of pedals are on there but they're not right so I'm gonna scope out some Schwinn pedals. Also, please ignore that squirrely tire cap. I have a repo Phantom light I could put on it but I'm not rushing into that yet. I'm not sure about that seat though. If anyone has feedback on that thing. It's in pretty good shape but doesn't look like my other repo seats. Here's a close up from Before I started the clean up.
View attachment 1646325

I'm currently tearing part my first bike as a kid from back in the 80's and I'm likely going to try and practice using an OA bath on that before I come back to this project again. I'd like to ultimately do a full OA bath on this to detail it up a bit as well as clean up some of the nuts and bolts on it. If anyone has feedback or suggestions, I take criticism pretty well.
Welcome to the hobby and cool first bike. I don't think this bike needs OA, which I understand to be more of an extreme rust tactic. The small bits can go in a tub with some CLR. I often just run them over a sanding block for a bit. Good luck!
 
Welcome to the hobby and cool first bike. I don't think this bike needs OA, which I understand to be more of an extreme rust tactic. The small bits can go in a tub with some CLR. I often just run them over a sanding block for a bit. Good luck!
What do you mean when you say "run parts over with a sanding block"?
 
Washers, bolts, screws - I find the corrosion and gunk comes off better with a little light sanding. Block is easiest for the purpose.
 
I would take all the chrome part except the tank and soak them in a solution of 10% molasses and water for a couple weeks and I guarantee all the rust will be completely gone . Here’s some pictures of a Phantom rack and lights before and after . Don’t soak any cad plated parts and fender braces should be sandwiched between two pieces of duct tape or the cad plating will be removed .
Pictures of the rack where it looks darker than the rack legs is because I clear coated it to keep it from rusting again so I can show the results . It will not hurt or remove the chrome at all but it will remove any cad plating
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Washers, bolts, screws - I find the corrosion and gunk comes off better with a little light sanding. Block is easiest for the purpose.
Sorry to disagree but sanding anything for anything but paint is not a good idea. If there is any chrome or Cad plating sanding wil break through the plating and expose bare metal. Then rust has more to grab onto and will only get worse by spreading under the plating edge. Better to just spend a bit more time and clean with a brass brush. Will remove surface rust but nothing else
 
Sorry to disagree but sanding anything for anything but paint is not a good idea. If there is any chrome or Cad plating sanding wil break through the plating and expose bare metal. Then rust has more to grab onto and will only get worse by spreading under the plating edge. Better to just spend a bit more time and clean with a brass brush. Will remove surface rust but nothing else
I respect what you are saying. If I were working on valuable bikes I would take the extra care but I mostly work on $25 shed bikes that get donated to a campus bike shop. All about trade offs.
 
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