figured i’d get this fucker disassembled so i knew exactly what i was workin with, and armed with science, i can set to work getting it tight and rideable again.

after disassembly, i’ve found that there’s not a lot here that i won’t be confident tinkering on. the only real new technology that i found is the quick-release stem and the S-A 3-speed internal hub. i’m going to do some online research on the hub so i know what’s going on inside there, but on initial inspection, it appears that the little chain and cable that actually cause the shifting are one piece that if need be, must be replaced in their entirety as a unit. again, more research is necessary, but that’s actually uplifting news, as S-A internal-geared hubs are not all that difficult to find replacement parts for. whew.

now the stem, on the other hand, is a pretty easily-understandable piece of equipment. it’s just a skewer on top of a quill stem bolt. no rocket science there. but there is a twist to the story. the only removable piece of it is the head. in fact, the stem’s shaft isn’t part of the stem at all, it’s part of the fork. very specialized. luckily, nothing is fucked up on the fork, cause the project would be pretty much shot at that point — i wouldn’t even know where to begin looking for a mid-70s motobecane riviera folder’s fork in good condition. here are some details of the stem’s pieces (and i apologize for not taking a shot of the top of the fork’s steerer tube, which would translate on an ordinary bike to the stem’s shaft)…

as you can see, the only thing wrong with these parts is surface rust. in fact, after i took these shots, i wiped out the inside of the stem’s head with a rag and 90% of the rust just came off as dust, leaving clean metal underneath. AWESOME. this should slam right back together quickSnap.

one thing this single-unit fork/stem thing means though, is that i must replace the bars with risers. i have no choice in the matter. the steerer doesn’t come up high enough to be able to run drops or moustaches. i must use risers. and i must use NEW risers, cause i found the cause of the slippage that was going on up there…

yeah, those bars are fucked.

moving along to other pieces, you can see that the seat is in almost unbelievably good shape, both under and over…

i did not expect that. i’ll end up replacing it at some point, but that just went WAAAY down on the priority list.

also in amazing shape is the trigger for the hub…

in disassembling this, i was able to discern exactly how it works, which is great. i feel 100% confident that despite it’s unique cable-mounting method, i can step right into intermediate-level skill when working with it. plus it looks fucking cool.

i didn’t take many other pictures, but i will say that i ran into a disappointing thing. the point on the hinge where she actually folds appears to be manufactured. no obvious way of separating the two halves. and that means no powder-coating. i might look into it further, but to be honest, i inspected it pretty closely and i don’t think it comes apart. but i’ve decided to embrace that. i’ll wireBrush the small bits of rust off of it, clean it up, take off the labels and branding that i don’t like, and consider myself lucky to have a sweet sweet folder rather than considering myself unlucky to have a folder that i can’t get custom-colored. besides, if i’m feeling really ambitious, i can always have the rack and the fork and the chainguard powder-coated to make it two-tone, which would be fucking sweet, too.

i have to replace most of the little connection bolts and shit, and i still have to gut the bottom bracket (i didn’t feel like getting into that today and it’s a cottered crank, which i don’t have the tools to work on. so either way that’s going over to box dog bikes), but really everything that i’m working with can be easily restored to working condition. the headset is in great condition, all of the connection points are sound, the shifting works, the bolts will be easily replaced — i mean, i don’t see why i couldn’t have have this on the road in it’s current form pretty quickly, barring catastrophic further discoveries. oh, i have to turn up some brakes for it, too, cause the originals are FUCKED. that might be a drag cause the brakes wrap AROUND the fenders. but we’ll see.

and man, what a joy it is to work on bikes that only require basic tools…

it feels so good — takes me back to when i was like 13, tearing my BMX bikes down to the guts and learning all this shit for the first time.

off to the interwebs to learn more!

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