MGOOF : Modern groupset on old frame

Nice work, always loved that colour scheme and the straight fork on those Gazelle's.

It's taken me 2 years to find one, but I finally managed to find a Columbus Max fork to go with my 1996 ti Merckx EX, so it can finally be a carbon-free zone and replace the ancient Kestral EMS fork that came with the frame. I've only had it a few years but this frame is 25 years old this year. Here was the build before : https://www.lfgss.com/comments/14959305/
The black tape and saddle was all a bit Colin from Accounts boring, and like nearly every other ti bike ever, so after I snapped the rails on the black Flite saddle I decided to give Eddy a bit of a revamp for his 25th birthday.

Still running 20 speed Campag, but I found a NOS gunmetal 3TTT stem and replaced the silver 3TTT Gimondi bars with some NOS gunmetal 3TTT Merckx bend Competizione bars, which looks great with ti and the ti-ish colour of the SUP rims. New excellent condition vintage Look Delta pedals, Lizard Skins tape and the closest colour matching saddle I could find was this Iscaselle Tornado. Tyres upped from 25c to 28c for added plushness, and first impressions are it looks better and rides better, so its a win all round.

Love the logos of those Merckx.

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Me too, they're my favourite Merckx logo, no doubt influenced by the TV shows of my youth.

That stem look great. Nice.

This works a charm:

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Process from when I was working full time restoring vintage bikes:

1) Strip parts, clean, dry

2) Dinitrol inside frame tubes

3) Lemon juice and wire wool / alu foil on rust spots

Lemon juice is more acidic & effective than cola. Use a fresh lemon, you'll only need 1-2 and they smell great.
Wire wool can be harsh on paint, but is great for chrome. Foil is more gentle but less effective. Small scratches in paint will be fixed if you use T-Cut in step 4....

4) Clean and dry frame again, Autosol on the chrome sections and T-Cut on paintwork. Start with a very clean cloth and floss the tubes and lugs. Clean and dry frame again.

5) Protective coating! You've got about 4 decent options from least to most protection:

• Mr Sheen polish
  
• RaceGlaze wax (or another wax)
  
• Clear coat (can, single part)
  
• Clear coat (can, two part.... careful as this is very hazardous and you need to look up the right PPE)
  
  

Surface Rust removal ...

Surface rust is often EXACTLY that - a tiny pin-prick in the chrome, which the rust oozes out of and forms a large "apparent" rust area on the surface. So I've found that you can soften that external rust by coating it in grease and leaving it for a week (wrap in cling film to reduce mess). You will find that you can then flick the majority of the rust of with a Mk1 thumbnail. I use a cocktail stick to pick out the remaining rust in the pin-prick. Then it's onto gentle polish and protect.

Pease be VERY careful if you go the Baco Foil route - think about it. As you scrape the rust off the chrome, it will imbed in the foil and you will then drag it over your nice chrome, rather like sand paper !! You can often see dull chrome with scratch marks when a novice has used this "expert" technique badly.

What are my most sleek and lightweight options for a threadless / non-quill stem?
Forks: 1" steerer, could aways shim it up to 1 1/8" (is this the done thing?)
Bars: Any, but 31.8mm would be very handy

@fredtc shared the following suggestions with me when I asked a similar question in the Look thread for my 565 frame

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@ghostface Excellent, thanks!
Would you expect both to be always 1 1/8" to 31.8mm ?

I'll be hunting ideally for a -17 degree stem.

yeah, they are.

The deda doesn't come in -17, sworks comes in -12, zipp used to do a nice slim -17 SL stem but now it's gone all chunky.

-17 and slim is hard to come by in my experience - if you find one (that comes in 130mm) let me know as I really want one for my speedvagen

Maybe it's done, maybe it's not.

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Did you relabel a Merckx as a MBK? What's the story?

The MBK Record Max was available as a frameset around 1994, probably deadstocks of MXL rebadged by MBK.

This one is a fullset of max tubing, not as some MXL with a SL top tube.

Let me find the catalog scan.

Here it is

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If you are patient you can still find the Zipp 17 degree ones. I have them on two bikes. Work for me.

These older Service Course SL ones are the slimmer (than current) ones. They come in 17.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/ZIPP-SERVICE-COURSE-SL-STEM-130mm-Beyond-Black-VGC-/154576930079?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&_trksid=p2349624.m46890.l49286&mkrid=710-127635-2958-0

Interesting they actually chose a panto'd frame, it's not exactly discreet is it?! Especially since they had one before with their trademark seat cluster.
That colour is amazing though, never seen a EM that looked as nice as that.

At first I was dreaming about this model.

But suddenly a wild Record Max appeard.

Wow great job! Love the wheels on this

Those ebay kalloy Uno lightweight stems are quite slim I think and available in 17 and 7 degrees

Merckx made frames for a few other companies, Caloi and Crescent for example.

Flexy as hell though. They're only ~120g.

Someone say flexi? 😎

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Whoa that’s nice, never seen one of those.