I am not far off buying an old Raleigh touring/ racing bike from the early eighties. I really fancy a project and would love to give it a respray and bring it back to life. So what are the things to look out for.? I am presuming that bits are still available.

So what have you done up.?

Currently restoring my girlfriends vintage Puch Dutch style bike. Old town bikes seem to have come in fashion as all her friends have brought them or want one. Aparently Pashleys aren’t were it’s at.

Be realistic. Diy paint is not tough. V limited choice of freewheels andhubs for instance. Replacing even a few worn parts will add up.

Can be fun though, just don’t expect to get something good to ride in comparison to modernbikes without spending coin.

I overhauled my old (early nineties) Raleigh hybrid, just before Christmas.
Powder coated frame, replaced headset, polished brake calipers, removed Raleigh badge and had some custom stickers made.

The end result was really satisfying and a group ride from London to Brighton saw it stretch its legs for the first time in years – it performed admirably and looked splendid in the early spring sunshine.

Read about it here

I’d suggest that you work out how to strip down everything (including the rear mech) so that,you can clean & polish as much as possible, replacing only those parts that are broken or too tatty to clean.
It’ll take a while, but you’ll be proud of your efforts.

Only thing to watch with Raleighs are the unique headset and bottom bracket threads. It might not apply to 80s models though.

just finished a similar thing myself with an early 80’s frame. It did not accommodate the recessed allen bolts for modern brakes and the collar on the steerer is of just a slightly greater diameter than more modern bikes (so I kept the old headset after going cross-eyed trying to fit my 105 crown race!)

Rebuild of my ’50s Holdsworth roadbike here There’s a lot of demented ranting (from me) but plenty of good advice from other forum members.

It was easy enough to get parts despite being so old, fairly cheap to do and good fun. The bike gets regular use and has proven reliable for approaching 6 months with minimal attention.

Autosol is the metal polish to be using.

Before

After

@ ds1 was that a Raleigh? as I said some older ones had 26TPI threading as opposed to the more common 24tpi

For the day shift.?

You forgot to put the brakes back on.