Fuji-san, Part 2

The Fuji prior to its cleaning, resting on the Rillito River Path.
Note the brown chain.  July 11, 2012

     I'll begin this post with some more mundane information which I did not include in my previous post, introducing my favorite Fuji bicycle.  I chose to not go into this information because at the time I was doing that work on the bike, I simply didn't have the information yet.  Not that it was beyond me--it all started with me recording the serial number--but I simply wasn't interested, or didn't think to research the bike.  Sometime in the middle of the summer of 2012, however, after my beloved mountain bike was stolen, I took it upon myself to record the serial numbers of all the bikes under my supervision.  In doing so, I became interested in the story of my bike.  What year was it?  What model?  Was all of the stuff that I hadn't changed yet truly stock?  Luckily for me, this information wasn't too terribly hard to find.

Scan from the 1980 Fuji catalog.  That is my bike, although I apparently have the "Ice Blue" version.  Source

     By my best reckoning, my Fuji is an S12-S made in July of 1980.  This was a touring model for Fuji that started in the early 1970's, as the S10-S.  Originally a "ten speed", with five gears in the rear and two gears in the front, in 1977 it got upgraded to a twelve speed drivetrain, with six gears in the back.  In 1979 it became the S12-S, gaining small upgrades such as a Nitto stem, new derailleurs, and side-pull brakes.  Between 1979 and 1980 the S12-S is nearly identical, with the only real change being the unique derailleurs.  The 1981 model gained an extra chainring, bumping the gearing up to eighteen speeds.  So my bike sits right in 1980, which is slightly disappointing, as I always wanted to have a steel bike from the 1970's.  But hey, the Blues Brothers movie was released in 1980, so I can take that as a good sign.

     With that out of the way, I can describe the latest work I've done to the bike.  It all started in the middle of December, 2012, one night after work when I decided to linger around and wait for my fiancee Keri to get off so we could both drive home.  I was anxious to get started on a small project I had been planning, to basically clean and polish up the stem on my Fuji as it was a bit scuffed up and had some nasty tarnish on the underside of the shaft forward.  As is often the case when casually working on one's own equipment, I got lost in the moment and found myself with an almost completely unassembled bicycle, having removed the drivetrain, handlebars and stem.  I figured with the bike out of commission as I cleaned the stem, it was as good a time as any to clean up the derailleurs.  I had just recently cleaned my freewheel in our parts cleaner at work, and it came out looking almost brand new, so I was excited to see what my beautiful derailleurs would look like.  I was in for a bit of a surprise.

Rear derailleur, before going into the parts cleaner.  December 13, 2012

The arrow points to the gap in the cage,
allowing the chain to be
easily removed.  January 4, 2013

     But first, a word on the derailleurs.  As with the crank arms, both the front and rear derailleurs on the S12-S were specially marked with the Fuji name.  Made by Suntour, the Vx S (rear) and Vx (front) are exceptional middle-range derailleurs.  They are not top-of-the-line, but for me they are perfect.  More than anything, I think they are extremely nice looking and very elegant.  I am very fond of the Quick Cage feature especially on the rear derailleur.  Notice in the picture to the right  how there is no outward plate connecting the pulleys on the cage of the derailleur.  This allows you to easily remove the chain from the derailleur, a process that would otherwise require you to either break the chain, or loosen both pulley bolts to remove the cage plate.  Instead, with this design I just bend the chain a bit and it falls right out.  Beautiful.

Rear derailleur, after the parts cleaner.  Note the chunk of black paint that came off!  December 13, 2012

     As you can see above, the derailleur came out looking very nice and clean, except for one part... the paint!  The parts cleaner ate off a sizeable chunk of the thin black paint backing the raised Fuji label.  As I discovered this, the front derailleur was in the parts cleaner, losing an even larger part of its paint.  I should have known better, the parts cleaner has been known to remove the thin plastic veneer that covers a lot of modern Shimano components.  To say I was upset would be an understatement, but I quickly decided how I would fix it:  model paint.

     The stem on the other hand, the whole reason for me dismantling my bike, came out with hardly any noticeable improvements.  Sure, some of the tarnish was gone, but the stem didn't really shine the way I wanted it to.  A week or so later, while in Wal-Mart the metal polish section caught my eye, and after reading through the labels I picked up Brasso Metal Polish.  That night I attempted to polish up the stem but again, with little result.  I guess compared to how the stem originally was, it is an improvement, but it didn't really turn out the way I had in mind.  Of course, I have virtually no experience in polishing metals, and I'm sure there are some tricks I could learn to really make it look the way I want.  For now, this'll have to do though.

Left:  Stem before cleaning.  Note the black splotches and tarnish.  December 13, 2012
Right:  Stem after cleaning and polishing.  January 6, 2013

     Back to the derailleurs.  I bought a quarter ounce vial of Testors Gloss Black enamel model paint from Michaels, hoping to remedy the decorative destruction the parts cleaner wrought on my beautiful Suntour derailleurs.  The first night, sitting on the kitchen floor with paper towels as my protection against coloring the linoleum, I tediously and carefully pricked paint onto the bare metal surface using one of Keri's wooden makeup tools.  It should be noted here that I do not excel at such tedious affairs, because my hands have never been tremendously steady.  The process was a bit stressful on me, for I had a great fear of ruining the part even more than before, and even a slight bob of my hand in the wrong direction could, and did, put paint where it didn't need to be.  I had to scrape the raised letters clean with the opposite, chisel shaped end of Keri's tool.  It turned out okay.  I can see the flaws and tell it is painted, but a coworker said she wouldn't have noticed if I didn't point it out, so I guess I did well enough.

The newly installed and painted Suntour Vx S rear derailleur.  January 4, 2013

     The front derailleur's paint job turned out a little better in my opinion.  There was less to paint around the letters for it, which meant it wasn't as tedious.  The painted section is also facing forward on the seat tube clamp, which makes it a little less obvious when looking at the bike from the side.  While I had the part off I noticed a surprisingly deep groove cut into the outward cage plate, caused by the chain rubbing and grinding into the metal due to the derailleur not being properly trimmed.  I had never noticed this before, and it scared me a little, but I have seen far worse, that is for sure.  It'll be fine for me.

Left:  Newly painted and installed Suntour Vx front derailleur.  January 4, 2013
Right:  The worn groove on the outward cage plate of the front derailleur.  January 4, 2013

     I chose to not clean the cranks or chainrings simply because I did not want to risk any damage to the molded lettering.  Yes, I could potentially fix it with model paint, but the end result doesn't look nearly as good as the original.  I'm okay with it being a little dirty, for now.  Perhaps after I get a little better at this, I can give it a shot.

     The final piece to the puzzle was putting it all back together and wrapping my handlebars with new bar tape.  With my new Brooks saddle, some of my coworkers suggested I go with my idea of getting brown bar tape.  I toyed with the idea of getting leather bar tape, but the honest truth is that it is just too expensive, and I've heard it isn't even that comfortable either.  I went with my standby, Origin-8 Cork Handlebar Tape, color brown.  And I have to say, it looks great.

Left:  A rare shot of me actually working on a bike, taken by a kind coworker.
Right Top:  Down the top tube.
Right Middle:  Bottom bracket shell from the front triangle.  Note the small crease
of rust between the seat tube and down tube, oh no!
Right Bottom:  Bottom bracket shell from the rear triangle.
All taken January 4, 2013

     I was so happy to get this bike running again.  In the three or so weeks the Fuji was in pieces, I had to ride my Cannondale.  Although the Cannondale has some special meaning to me, I just don't like riding it as much as the Fuji.  Steel is real, as they say.  Or maybe it's the geometry, my Cannondale has very aggressive racing geometry, compared to the more lackadaisical touring geometry of the Fuji.  Whatever the reason may truly be, I love my Fuji, I love the Brooks, and I love the brown bar tape.

Full shot of the completed bike.  January 4, 2013

     I have semi-secret names for all of my bikes.  At least they were semi-secrets, they won't be anymore, as nothing is a secret on the internet.  The first bike I named, Yamamaru, was my Cannondale mountain bike that has been stolen from me.  The second bike, Douromaru, is my Cannondale road bike that I still have, and begrudgingly had to ride for the past month.  I haven't, and won't, name my dad's mountain bike.  The Fuji, I decided last night, will simply be named Fuji-san.  The Japanese name for Mount Fuji, Fuji-san can also be translated simply as Mr. Fuji.  Indeed, it seems the Japanese have, at least subconsciously, some kind of unusual association that mountains are entities instead of things, a sentiment I can agree with.  Perhaps that is reading too far into it.  But, I like it, and it is simple.  Fuji-san it is.  I hope to hold onto the bike for a very, very long time.

Note:  For those interested in an unusually well put together and informative website on rear derailleurs, I can recommend Disraeli Gears.  It is where I gained some knowledge on my own equipment, and I find it interesting to read about some of the other ones out there as well.

I can also recommend this website as a resource for "Classic Fuji" bicycles, years 1971 through 1991.  It is where I found the information regarding serial numbers, and there are quite a few catalog scans from every one of those years.  A great website for Fuji enthusiasts.