Peugeot NS restoration

Peugeot NS22 in as-found condition, rear wheel is 24"

In liberating it, I broke this cable cutter, but Christine has found a use for it as a hand-exerciser.

BYK 451 wheels and stripped down parts and frame.......

and more parts........

And the slightly nasty fork wear.

Byk short cranks and bolted on 46T cog.

Byk 451 7 speed.

Hi

A few days ago, I took some photos of an abandoned bike, it had been locked up to a post in a neighboring street. I was doing some writing at the time and was interested in both locked up and unlocked abandoned bikes, and this one, a Peugeot NS22 folding bike was a classic locked abandoned bike, having been there for 2 years and slowly deteriorating.  Anyway, photographing the bike also meant examining it, and then working out that I wanted it, maybe some wheels I had at home would be ok for it.

So the next day was Sunday and I got up fairly early armed with tools and recumbented down to where the bike was, and started taking the front wheel of the bike off to disentangle it from the lock. I got as far as the mudguard stays and broke my cable cutters trying to snip them.   Not giving up, I went back home for more tools, and found a ring spanner to be the best of them. With that I could remove the mudguard stay, and with a multi-tool, I could remove the spokes the lock was around, and hey-presto, the bike was free and able to be plonked on the recumbent and wheeled home.

It was a quick turnaround at home, I dumped the frame and headed off for a bike ride where I managed to catch up with a few friends in St. Kilda. Later in the day I showed my wife Christine the busted cable cutters, and she immediately adopted them as hand-exercisers!

It's been a few days since then and I have stripped down the frame to reveal its occupant, a rather scary 3cm length spider, and also some wear on the fork thread. I think I can fix this and did a similar job here .  Will report more later, probably just carrying on with this post rather than writing new ones.

Regards Steve Nurse

Update Feb 7, 2020

I've decided that this fix-up is more of a resuscitation that a restoration.  Restoration implies some sort of authenticity, but the way its going I will need to do a bit of parts swapping to get things fixed. For example, the new steerer thread is not the same and I will need to fit some new parts there.  But I like this!  It gives me the option to do some slightly more creative things than just fixing it.

Layout for fork repair, the existing steerer tube is cropped, and a sleeve and threaded tube have been prepared to replace it.

Fork repair started, the basic weld is done. Note the bearing and bearing housing are in place, they don't fit over the sleeve.

Old and new steerer tubes, and

.......... another simpler but maybe dodgier option for repair.

How it looked at the end of the day. After 3 or 4 sessions, the frame has been cleaned, the fork fully repaired and reassembled.  Its all ready for repopulation. 

Here is the maiden voyage of the bike, up to WeCycle to take back in the rubbish bins after collection.  I had neglected to bring tools (doh) or tighten up the back wheel (doh, doh).  But I was able to limp along to the Darebin city bike tools and was able to fix things.

My first ride on the bike went ok, with no problems except for failing to tighten up the back wheel!  Gears are good, but brakes (only the front one connected at the moment) are horrible.  So I will keep on plugging away at things, installing a back brake and fixing the front one.

And here's a slightly better photo, the bike is now 2 rides into its new life.  I plan to fit the blue milk crate to the front of the bike.

This is the end of this post now, I'll report about fixing the brakes (sofar the front brake was pathetic and the back brake not fitted) in a separate post. The story follows on here.