Shock Absorbers

The rear shocks need stripping down for painting / rechroming.

A simple process - compress the springs and release a couple of collets at the top, which then allows the spring and covers to come off. Simple to describe but difficult to do and one of them sprang back and "bit" my thumb with much blood sprayed around! (Slight exaggeration, but I did swear a bit.)

The lower cover should be chrome, but mine have rusted away long ago. It is much cheaper to buy new covers than it would be to have these rechromed, so that's what I'll be doing, but everything else will be cleaned up and repainted.

Seat Base

The seat cover is OK, but worn and torn in a couple of places and doesn't have the right coloured piping that is normally used for these Crusaders, so I will put a new cover on it. 

When I had a close inspection of the base, I was a bit apprehensive of what I would find, as it felt like there was a lot of crumbly rust around the edges. After stripping the cover off, it was a pleasant surprise - the base is really solid - what I thought was rust was where the seat foam has degraded and solidified/crumbled. I'll need to replace the seat foam but that's much easier than welding in new steel.

The foam actually looks and feels rusty - not sure how that works?

But the metal base is really solid - a quick wire brushing and it will be ready for paint.

Strip Down - Wheels

 

I've been reearching the best thing to do about the wheels - most advice seems to be that the original rims will be higher quality than most reproduction ones so, as mine are superficially rusty but fundamentally sound, I have decided to have the rims rechromed.

A good tip was to use bolt croppers to cut all the spokes (which will be renewed), so I got a cheap one from Screwfix, which did the job perfectly.

Of course, I took lots of photos of the spoke lacing pattern before I attacked them. The lacing is a lot less complex than on a bicycle wheel, so I'm fairly comfortable about having a go at this myself.

The photos show the front wheel and the same process was followed for the rear wheel.