Vintage Trek Road Bike Gets Index Shifting! PLUS…BB & HS overhauls, bar end shifters and leather!

Viewer/Customer John wanted index shifting on this bike as soon as it became a thing in this world, but his local shop talked him into a new bike (probably the right call at the time, FWIW). Anyway, we did some work to that other bike, but what he really wanted, was his original bike to go click, click, click in all the right ways. I had just stripped a bike with all the best parts from the day to give THIS OLD BIKE the facelift it needed. I’m super happy with how this turned out and I’m sure John will be too!

Hey bike Farmers thanks for clicking in we’ve got this vintage Trek road bike here and it’s set up with six-speed Sun tour friction down tube shifters and the customer asked if I could convert it to some bar end shifters and I said sure why not I’ve even got some old Sun tour

Barcons it’ll still be friction but I kind of like how that feels and I kind of talked them into it and then yesterday I stripped down an old canondale frame and I ended up with some Shimano barend shifters that are indexing so they click let’s see also on that bike were some really

Cool wheels that bike had these mavik ma 40s DT Swiss spokes on these specialized hubs that are just buttery silky smooth and a seven-speed Freewheel really cool wheels and they’re 27 in that’s the big kicker the customer is a viewer so I don’t know my brain told me hey this is

A good idea to reach out to the customer and say hey we can make a video I got these parts I don’t know what else I’m going to do with them you know this 27in stuff is kind of hard to find and seven-speed bar end index Shimano pretty

Cool all of his other bikes are indexed he’s got old road bikes and they’re indexed he had already picked out some Brooks leather tape it’s actually pleather it’s not real but it’s wonderful stuff um we went with honey Brown I think it’s going to look really

Great when we get done and then in my bins I found this old Shimano 600 rear derailer that I think is going to look really nice kind of keep it that vintage feel what excites me the most is is I love vintage steel road bikes this is

Just classic geometry guy’s had the bike forever he doesn’t ride it much but I think with these changes I think he’s going to have himself a very ridable road bike so yeah lots going on with this one this headset is uh kind of indexed so we’re going to freepack the

Bottom of the headset and get that so it’s moving smoothly I’m going to take this bottom bracket apart and put some new grease in that too kick back relax and enjoy the build [Applause] Per the use to start with taking these wheels off I think we’ll do some pads on this Bike These old Sun tour VX rear derailers are wonderful pieces of Machinery just a really great derailer really neat some say they’re the best ever built but no indexing and blah blah Blah yeah it’s just they’re so overbuilt lots of features really strong spring just a nice gorgeous piece of Machinery really like it total bike nerd stuff right there I think I’m going to pull this out of here too it’ll make it easier to clean the

Frame we got to get we’re going to end up with all new cables and everything anyway we can reuse this front derailer with the bar end shifters the left one is or the front whatever you want to call it is friction anyway so this will work fine no compatibility issues there so

Just keep that on there it’s it’s original and frankly I think the sun tour stuff is prettier than the Shimano Stuff this bike wasn’t ridden a lot primarily because right after he got it he was going to upgrade it to index and it got talked into buying a new bike probably made a whole lot of sense at the time but now we can do it so why not

Another thing of note metal dust Caps Got a lot of questions about this tool on a previous video the hose and lockering pliers I got an affiliate link for you oh didn’t e it but it’s a great Tool all right let’s see what this thing looks like oo it is very greased it didn’t need it could have just adjusted it but since we’re at it this far I might as well clean it up and do the right thing huh Yeah it was all loose anyway this is good good Plan good and greasy I think I’ll put on some gloves to do this One get some stuff out of the way [Applause] Here Get some of this old grease off I decided not to dirty up one of my cloth Rags just cuz it’s a lot of Grease more than you need but it doesn’t hurt anything it’s a s bottom bracket nice durable high quality bottom bracket nothing nothing fancy nothing cheap like the

Good old days of track in the beginning that was their whole thing nothing fancy nothing cheap they did have a couple of high-end bikes I mean you could go you know European racing bike if you wanted get some fancy tubes with some camping NOA but for the most part it was just

Good Japanese quality tubing and Japanese componentry Japan was really coming on the scene Sun tour was too practical they lost to the technology they were just I think a little bit behind the eightball didn’t quite make it so I made a grease syinge the other day still haven’t used It say that works pretty Good Good and Greasy just clean the threads up a little bit Here There that’s good and tight woo so with the spindles you can see there’s writing on them I think you can see that and you want to be able to read the writing if you’re standing over the bike looking down that’s how you know which direction the spindle goes forgot

To wipe the threads over here got a finger in There oh dropped a lock Ring So sometimes with the lock ring pliers if you get it just right you can squeeze super tight and get it to and that’ll grab the cup and you can make micro adjustments on the Fly that’s a little trick you know cuz if you’re compressing the ring onto the cup you can crank on

It so cuz it’s had a little bit of a play to it but I think it’s just about perfect I think it’s going to spin freely once we get things on okay it’s good and tight TI we’re going to go with that for now give it a good flossing while we’re in

Here these somewhat dirty clean Rags make good tack cloths it’s good for grabbing some Grime getting it out of There looks like this chainstay had a chain stay protector on it left behind some residue my weapon of choice is Goof Off it’s coming right off woo smells good too things might get weird if I’m Lucky and this thing is ridiculously clean anyway Knock some dust off of it right what if somebody’s Looking use this other arm to get leverage on it so my arm’s not in your shot it’s all about getting the shot see how hard I work for you Guys oo that’s buttery smooth yeah we’re Good Sun tour Dropouts Vintage Shimano 600 also known as altegra Rudy this is just prior to the tricol stuff I think that’s perfect for this bike good color and everything yeah glad I found that Max Cog of 28 should be perfect I’m going to cheat a a little bit on these brake Cables turn this frown upside Down you just drop some lube down your cable grab your brake lever and do some squeezing and if you want to get real tricky you can hit some up front here too just kind of work it in there might as well do the front too while I’m at it huh good

Enough you get the gist right you see what I’m Doing Behold Cheapo furniture polish makes wonderful bike polish if you put it on the list your wife will buy it for you 12 Cans So we have to take these shifters off then this bike is before they were putting bosses on them there is a little stoppy thingy braze down here that’s kind of Neat that cleaned up all right here’s an old Shimano cable stop strap thingy whoops that was not an OP I didn’t really drop it the whole way made a quick little modification of this bolt off camera to get it so it stops spinning get a good clamp on it that ain’t going Nowhere Woo Dusty Rusty Crusty okay so I’m going to take my petal wrench handle stick it in the fork like that and hold it down below and then crank off my lock nut Set it aside take the old reflector off one spacer there’s another one here a keyed one I got there we go Top one’s still got some grease to it all right we’re going to flip that bike over and pack the Bottom ooh that cleaned up really well there are no pits or nothing and they’re clean as a whistle did you hear that it whistled I think I want to make the hole in this thing bigger I squeeze it too hard it’s a little hard to control then we

Just whop dropped a ball bearing wonder how many I’m going to drop let’s just count them that’s one two grease is really sticky but gravity is stronger all right I got so much grease in there I can’t see what I’m doing anymore but if you take your

Fork stick it in there I always purposely hit it with the threads on the fork too just grease them Up okay all right cuz now my threads are already greased then I look and I can see where the balls are and I think there’s plenty grab one of the ones I dropped I’m going pull right through there oh dropped a ball bearing put it right there one shiny one for

You well I guess I forgot to hit record but I just sprayed the crap out of that with this and rubbed it all down like that and made it all clean here’s the top Cup I just don’t want to flip it over and spray it with the Greaser and watch all those ball bearings fall out all over the floor I know that’s what you want to see but I don’t want to see it we can put the fork In Grease the top bearing Okie dokie headset is overhauled forgot the Reflector and we can clean that up too [Applause] huh all right I’m going to put this up high as it lets Us W that feels good man that feels really good oh yeah now everything’s good beautiful so this headset was keyed or I can’t remember what they call it but keyed I believe is but anyway it was stuck in the forward position um and that’s because the bearing retainer

Holds the bearings in one spot and anyway if you free pack the bottom like I did it makes everything silky smooth better than new all right we’re going to get going on these wheels here they’re really pretty straight I might try to make a couple tweaks here yeah the nipples are

Still spinning great beautiful these are some really nice Wheels that’s all it took I mean it was not much just put a little bit of grease on the axle over on this side now I’m going to grind it in with a rag kind of polishes things up

And I’m just using the goo that’s on this rag to polish The Hub back here I’m going to knock everything off the spokes too this bike sat for a while but these hubs feel so nice I’d be foolish to take them apart yeah this rag has a lot of

That um Citrus degrease around it from doing the headset so it’s polishing these spokes right up let’s go one at a time I don’t know a faster way to do it sometimes I’ll just hit them with Dawn power wash and then wipe that off but I’ve got such a good juicy rag right

Right now that even spray this stuff man I really want to take the spoke protector it’s got a really nice alloy spoke protector on that old wheel I think I’m going to do it put it on this [Applause] one want get close up of That look at how clean that is shined right up very happy yeah the further I get along on this project the better the idea seems to Me I’m just going to do the rag it’s an old Grateful Dead reference for you So he’s got some 28 mm Continental Ultra Sports on here they look to be just fine we’re going to keep them I think some uh pan aaser pilas would help this bike float a little more yeah these are one and an eigh I think you could even fit one and a quars on

This bike so 32 mm that’s what I’d do when it’s time go with a little wider Tire Come [Applause] what do you say should we get that dork disc off there it’s so good oh okay Public Service Announcement I would say it’s almost 50% I mean it seems like a lot but these Springs are in backward so that’s Wrong the pointy side goes in folks every single time pointy side goes in when you have the pointy side out then the Springs wrap around the axles it doesn’t fit in the dropouts right your wheel goes in crooked then you adjust your brakes to a crooked wheel blah blah blah blah blah

Blah blah blah and it’s all because of the stupid little spring and they’re always on backwards because your brain is telling you that it makes sense but it doesn’t pointy side in pointy side in pointy side in you’ll never forget Oh that’s not the right Tool uh how about this one no how about this one no how about this one no about this One Nope look at that folks I’m stumped I don’t have the tool to get this free wheeel off it’s an atom 77 compact Freewheel and I don’t have the tool for it so spoke protector stays what do you say do we put a plastic one on there I’m going to leave

It if it ain’t broke don’t fix it it looks good the way it is y I’m just going to go ahead and say it right now for all you people that are already writing that comment you’re not clever I know I’m a hypocrite I know I’ve been

Lecturing you on dork discs and I just decided against it but I’m Andy Quant and I do what I I [Applause] want get this front one Done they’re actually specialized hubs I came off of canondale vintage canondale but it was kind of a Franken bike these came off a very nice bicycle these were high-end amazing Wheels early you you know like in the days of track and specialize late ’70s early 8s you know

Just cuz it’s 27 in I don’t know exactly when everything switched over to 700 C it’s pretty funny how many people think 700 c means 700 CM think about how big that wheel would be be honest with you I don’t even know what 700 c means I know C is the tire

Width which doesn’t make any sense cuz it’s a rim size Get this thing looking like a bike again Huh makes me want to ride It yeah there’s definitely room for inch and a quarter tires and I’d do it on this one exciting I’m going to try to reuse this original chain I think it’s going to index just fine but if it doesn’t we’ll swap it out how’s that sound this can be Tricky the length looks good H it might be a link too Long let’s make sure everything works before we jump to conclusions okay we’ll unwrap These Bars I’m always tempted to just start ha hacking them off but I think the easiest way is still just to cut them at the top here and unwrap them you start hacking

On this way and it just ends up being a mess and kind of do this actually these were wrapped the other way Apparently notice I didn’t say the wrong way it’s not the way I do it but there’s a debate out there in which way is right there’s good arguments on both sides I’ve I’ve heard presented I have my preferred method I don’t have a whole lot of reason for It okay these Shimano bar well I think all the bar end shifters are reverse thread so put it in there and Lefty tidy and the hardware is pretty soft so don’t get that wrong you will destroy them ask me how I know you kind of got to know what’s up

With these things once you get them all put together properly it’s kind of neat cuz if you flip this guy up you can put it there and now you got a friction shifter okay you turn it Here and you got your sis indexing we’re going to leave this at indexing and set it up and then he has the option you can flip that anytime you want all the way down so you’re in first gear second gear third gear fourth gear fifth gear sixth gear seventh gear and

Then you got a ghost so technically you could make it an eights speed if you wanted to but that’s got some good haptics to it pop that one in there that one’s just friction so it’s just high low you can put a triple on this bike no problem not the best angle for

You but we GNA go Lefty TIY again it’s kind of risky to use this big wrench like that but just snug it Up oh dropped a shifter so I get it pointing straight Down Pretty good okay we’re going to get our best guess on housing length Here that looks good and not ridiculous so once I get one piece cut I know the other side will be the exact same line that up cut the other side and then I have sharpened spokes that I use as Pokey tools open up the innards here and then put the ferals

On and I want I want to make sure that these are as seated as possible these plastic ones tend to seat themselves when you start working them then everything just kind of sits in its home there and this should sit right there this one there pretty

Good wonder if they’re a little long I think they’re a little long I’m going to cut a little bit off yeah I’m going to cut a little off brand new slick cables this bikee is going to practically ride Itself so this is the same customer with the DIY guy nice try video that was his Gary fiser that he did a pretty good job on except for the things that he kind of missed a little bit but we sorted it out and then also the Lin and cougal charity

Bike I had one other track I didn’t do a video on cuz I was a little unsure of how it was going to turn out and turned out pretty good but when he picked them all up he dropped this off and then we talked about fun things we can do with

It and he also mentioned that his wife is reading my wife’s book and there’s a link in the description to that it’s an award-winning novel all the Librarians here in Wisconsin voted at the literary fiction book of the Year this year it will be one of the best books you read I

Promise it’s a very good book it’s called still True by Maggie Ginsburg nice story of living in a small town people always ask what’s it about and it’s just you know it’s just a good literary fiction now it’s about life how we live and treat one another and

Secrets and deception and why and that kind of stuff so if you’re into fiction into reading go get still true use the affiliate link so I get a cut anyway a lot of you watch my other videos where I’m ranting and raving about how annoying customers are and you

Know John gets it he brings me this stuff in the middle of winter when I got nothing better to do I don’t like doing these projects in the middle of bike season cuz they take forever and they’re complicated and you never know how they’re going to turn out and blah blah

Blah blah blah you know and that’s when I’m making money I just want to tune up hybrids get people rolling so think about that if you’re uh in a seasonal place just cuz you have a weird bike project doesn’t necessarily mean you’re doing the bike shop a favor by bringing

It to him in the middle of the Season normal stuff know your dayto day that stuff all the time baby tune up bikes and I sleep this brake cable here is giving me the fits man I’m about to just put a new cable on

Here oh oh I just frayed it damn it all right we’re getting a new cable so Dumb so this what I’m going through right now and like can’t get that out blah blah blah this is why these projects are best for the off seon cuz this kind of stuff happens I knew it as soon as I took the C out of this front

Brake earlier I knew I’d live to regret it you know fishing this crusty old cable out of this lever come on there we go see how it’s all bent and kinked And Oh I thought I had it nope there we Go I’m using the camera mic now sorry if it’s sounds a little funny I don’t know when I lost audio I think I can edit a lot of that out so you probably just missed a whole lot of stuff did you hear the part about going to the description

And finding the affiliate link to buy my wife’s book okay so I got the front derailer hooked up here and now I’m going to flex the cable and of course there’s a lot of slack now those ferals that we put on the housing probably just seated themselves make sure your lever

Is all the way down this is good and tight Crank That anchor now the limits should be set I actually bought one of these uh ke to tip crimper tools I got to learn how to use it but you can just put the cable tip in

It and then put it on there and squeeze getting pretty close to the Moment of Truth seeing how this this thing indexes all right we’re going to do the same thing we just Flex that cable stretch it Out okay here we go chain is too long okay so that chain or the cable was a little loose I’m going to tighten it get that to stop rubbing uh we should just take a link out of that Chain Okay so I’m going to turn the barrel adjuster in a little grab the cable we’re going to manually tighten it okay I’m pulling as hard as I can with my right hand and trying to operate a tool with my left okay so it’s struggling to go up I think a new

Chain would really improve that this kind of gives you the best of both worlds though you get that real clunky Sun tour feel it’s not shifting down Though I like how it Engages I mean it’s doing it It’s just it’s just a little sluggish going up I just to added a little Tension all right should we try a new chain I got to take a link out anyway try a different chain I mean a new chain and free whe doing it going new chain and free wheel free wheels are so cheap I’ve got a bunch of them two Three plenty of grease on those Threads Wake it up it’s been sitting in the Box all right this is the brand new KMC chain and a shiman free whee looks like we’re going to remove one link Yeah all right ooh it’s way Quieter oh it is so Smooth oh my goodness it’s amazing if you work with products that were designed to work together oh my God that is so Good I feel like set a nerd for getting excited right now I just love That I don’t know what’s holding that re brake pad in but that’s no Good pads it is we’ll do the front too why not I don’t think there’s anything in the bike shop cheaper than than these brake pads these are cute little diant caliper brakes too I like everything about this bike especially the black cable tip so I buy black ones and silver ones

And then I just randomly grab them just a think I get more excited about the black ones you see so many silver ones I guess that’s one drawback these anodized rims aren’t the best braking surface but that’s okay brakes only slow you down okay we’re going to try to tighten this brake from this cable here not always easy yeah got it Through Excellent let’s do the pads in the front too huh sorry about the Audio hope we’re getting all This man that’s good hey guess what you guessed it black tip really good really good so normally I really don’t like to tape them until after the test ride but it snowed like 4 in last night I’m just going to start wrapping so we’ve got this fancy Brooks

Tape you wanted leather but I’ve used this stuff and leather and I like this stuff better microfiber they call it whatever that Means I’m opening myself up to ridicule here this is how I’ve always done it I start it by wrapping one wrap around itself Might be tricky this is the problem with wrapping um bar end shifters when you have the cables routed like this I’ve routed the cables all the way up the handlebars on some of my bikes and I like that but I was afraid with this bike it’s a really

Big bike that might be too long and I need to then use tandem cables and make it’s expensive and it’s kind of silly this this preserves it’s we have these brake the brake housing up here and it’s just got that classic feel so we can keep that classic look and feel

To this bike Figure eight situation up here by this Hood looking like maybe I’d get getting away with This A little unorthodox but I think that looks pretty Good I don’t know if I can do that For [Applause] For Stem straightened out a little Bit Vintage Tru water bottle how about that beautiful let’s give this build two thumbs up I love how it turned out okay to show the customer I think John’s going to be thrilled with the way this turned out I’m really happy with it I’ve never seen anything shift so well in my entire life

This is so much better than it was so much more ridable this was John’s first real bike and in the late 80s when indexing came out he wanted it put on this bike and the shop said no it’s easier if you just buy one that’s already got it installed and they were

Right CU this is a lot of work it would have been expensive back then uh it’s not as expensive now so I mean comparatively so now he’s got it you know I mean here we are are 40 years later and it’s happening maybe not 35 years later still long time later and he

Finally gets what he wants it’s beautiful I love these old tracks you know this is local Heritage to me and I’m just really thrilled the way this turned out thank you so much for watching this far I assume if you watch this far that you enjoy this content if

You want to see more you got to support the channel you can click all of the buttons you can become a member you can send a super things all of these things help but remember the most important thing is to click that notification Bell so you and your bike can stay [Applause] Tuned