Merckx Corsa Extra Build

Ok so I'm underway on my first build. This began after I picked up a Corsa Extra Team Weinmann frame on ebay. The frame had a dura ace headset and from this starter I also picked up part of a mixed dura ace 7800/7900 groupset for a very good price on ebay. Apologies to the purists (kind of) but this will be my main (road) bike and I wanted the steel ride with as good quality components as I could afford.

Unfortunately the frame I won came with a little ripple on the downtube and has since been returned from whence it came.

I then toyed with the idea of buying an Italian frame but decided that rather than go really sacrilegious and stick new dura ace on a Colnago or something I'll continue down the Merckx path, particularly as the paint job on the Weinmann was so beautiful.

So, I picked up another, slightly newer Corsa Extra. It's in perfect working order but with some patches of rust particularly on the chrome as you can see in the pics. One particularly bad spot on the chainstay I've treated but will remain visible although the wheel will probably cover the worst. I've also removed some surface rust from another couple of areas which I'll touch up once I've tested the colour. Somehow all of this extra work is making appreciate the frame even more than I probably would if it were in perfect condition.

The last week or so has involved large amounts of autosol to the chrome and lots of hard polishing... it's now starting to come up quite well and I'll post pics when i'm happy with the finish.

The groupset is now complete (most in very good condition with the exception of reasonably well used cranks) and some dura ace hubs laced to mavic open pros should be here soon.

I'm now trying to work out what I want in terms of the handlebar, stem, seatpost and saddle, suggestions welcome!

3 Attachments

Off to a good start. Have you tried polishing the chrome with aluminium foil? the allys soft and will remove any rust marks without scratching the chrome, and some bizarre reaction between the 2 makes an amazing polishing paste

Cheers. Yeah I followed the advise elsewhere in the forum and it's been thoroughly worked on with foil and coke, just trying to get the dirt out where the chrome's pitted now. That and carefully removing the surface rust to the paint is taking a while!