Vitus 979 Track Lo-Pro

*DISCLAIMER: The build (and repair) is not going to be fast, my personal expectations are to finish it by next spring, so don't reach into your pants just yet. *

So, today I've bought a Vitus 979 track pursuit frame for peanuts. The catch, however is, well...why don't you take a look yourselves.

My plan is to:

• Disassemble the frame
  
• Source a suiting top tube or get one made
  
• Anodize all the tubes in a new colour (thinking about peach or something along the line)
  
• Rebuild the frame using some Spacecraft-approved epoxy resin
  
  
  

Also, I will be needing a 650c (preferably alloy)fork, If you have one around- PM me.

I'll take some proper pictures once it arrives tomorrow, keep your popcorn ready.

Proper resto project, good luck

dude the purple vitus frames are the best ones. Dont change it.

Nice, these really have porn potential. Looking forward to how you will repair it too.

I'm considering it, but i suppose it would be rather hard to
match the actual color of the other tubes, so might as well
decide on something like this

Also, http://guywires.com/salestuff/vitusparts.htm
-tears of joy, going to email them next thing in the morning,
though it was last updated in '08, so i won't keep up my
hopes too high.

About the build itself, I plan on setting it up with cinelli la 84
bullhorns + xa stem, campy strada chainset and hard
anodized rims, still haven't decided on the rest yet.

Good luck man these are one of the greatest frames. I'm guessing it was structurally damaged and the damage has been cut out?

Thanks. I suppose, I'll ask the seller, but she's just shifting old equipment of a local cycling club, so I doubt she'll know any better.

If you haven't though about it already, i would consider going to a specialist to check the alignment of the frame.

Totally slipped my mind, thanks! I'll going to drop it off by a repair shop on the way home tomorrow

Been on my want list for a loooooooooooong time. Silver, purple and yellow is absolutely stunningly gorgeous.

So i gave the seller a call and asked what happened to the top tube.
She told me the frame was never crashed and just spent a decade or so in the basement when a few years ago she decided to saw the top tube off because she needed the aluminium tube for purposes I can't comprehend- blasphemy. Also, inquired if they have a matching 650 fork and was told they (the cycle club) threw all of them out a couple of years ago, probable with some other "useless junk", I honestly want to punch them. Anyhow, I'm going to pick the frame up tomorrow and in the meantime have found a shop in LA who used to restore Vitus/Alan/Guerciotti frames. They told me they still have some top tubes in stock, however all of them have internal cable routing, so I asked if I could use a seat tube as a replacement, waiting for the response at the moment. I also mailed Guerciotti, but I doubt they'll write back:

she took the saw to the tube because she needed the alu? what the fuck

she decided to saw the top tube

Is there an extreme version of the epic fail thread to put this in? Good luck with the build. Give em a punch from the forum too*.

*not in a position to speak for the forum.

Plain epoxy resin is not a very good adhesive. I would rather use an epoxy based glue like 3m sw 460 or sw 9323. Also make sure to treat the bonding surfaces properly before gluing. Are you aware you are going to need a framebuilding-jig to properly put the frame back together? Also, how are you planing on disasebeling it? Heat? I don´t want to spoil the fun, just want to make sure this works out in the end. Great frame and good project, keep it up!

I wasn't even considering hardware-store epoxy, http://www.systemthree.com/reslibrary/tds/T-88_TDS.pdf been thinking about this one, any clue how the 3m ones would compare in terms of cured strength?
As for the disassembling, i've found the originally used resins are thermoplastic, so just giving it a go with a heat gun should suffice. As for the Jig, i need to get a hold of one, might contact one local framebuilder if I use it.

The bike shop in LA wrote back, so basically i I can't swap the top tube with a seattube, so I'm probably going to have to settle with the internal routing, might file the extruding parts down and install upside down to be less visible, but It's a bit early to think about it.
Also, thanks for all the feedback and support.

Bonding vitus tubes is quite a feat since they are essentially 0.5 or 1.0mm Ø wider than the joints :) I assume there is a series of heating/cooling steps to go through to get all this done. Here's two pre morning coffee snaps of mine.

Looks like the downtube is slid in the joint while the top tube is going over. Cable wells shouldnt big a big thing to file out and fill if you are respraying anyway.

The glue you picked is quite comparable to the 3m stuff so i see no problem there. Most of the time when a joint fails its because of poorly applied glue anyways so much more important than the glue itself is that you use it in a way it can reach the performance it has in the data sheets. Do you know what kind of thermoplast was used in the original bond?

That's probably looks gorgeous, Erik, got pictures of the whole bike? The more I think about it, the less faith I have in restoring it myself, might ship it to US if they would do it for a reasonable cost.
I have no clue about the thermoplast formerly used, going to ask that shop about the original bonding procedure.
Picked it up an hour ago, looks beautiful, hardly any use, but the original grub screw is missing, looking for one now I found a five day old ebay listing, where four NOS ones were sold for a dollar each, all sold out and haven't found any others for sale yet, bummer.

To be honest its not an expensive frame and I wouldn't go through that much just to get it up and running. I see a few road frames a month on ebay in different colors and someone was trying to shift a low pro track version on here a couple of months back with little luck. I stripped the old decal off the top tube and put these current ones I found on ebay on.

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/436432/vitys2.jpeg
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/436432/vitus-chorusbuild.jpg
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/436432/vitus2.jpg
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/436432/vitus3.jpg

Cool, was thinking about taking the same frame from her and do the same plan: find a top tube, fork and make it into riding machine again.
Did not think the top tube was cut out for such stupid purpose (and the fact that they just threw away all 650c forks when I also need one is just annoying).
Glad you bought this - I think this should come out well.
Wonder what they do for tube replacing - do they heat the old glue to melt/loosen it? Sound simple enough to DIY

To be honest its not an expensive frame and I wouldn't go through that much just to get it up and running. I see a few road frames a month on ebay in different colors and someone was trying to shift a low pro track version on here a couple of months back with little luck. I stripped the old decal off the top tube and put these current ones I found on ebay on.

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/436432/vitys2.jpeg
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/436432/vitus-chorusbuild.jpg
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/436432/vitus2.jpg
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/436432/vitus3.jpg

Well, it was custom built for my national track team, so I assume it should be worth more than a run-off-the-mill road Vitus on ebay. Besides, I wanted a lopro for a long time and considering what I paid for the frame I figure the cost of getting it running again will be a fraction of what one would normally cost.

Your decals are by far the nicest I've seen, just looked on ebay, which ones are they'?

Cool, was thinking about taking the same frame from her and do the same plan: find a top tube, fork and make it into riding machine again.
Did not think the top tube was cut out for such stupid purpose (and the fact that they just threw away all 650c forks when I also need one is just annoying).
Glad you bought this - I think this should come out well.
Wonder what they do for tube replacing - do they heat the old glue to melt/loosen it? Sound simple enough to DIY

Thanks, as for the replacement, the old resin loosens up once heated, but as previously stated the hard part is to make a strong bond reassembling the frame.

P.S. Was pointed at a source for the grub screws, 12 dollars for a pack of ten, Was prepared for shelling 50 dorrahs for one, so this was good news.

A purple vitus was on this forum a while back. Built for the Latvian track team if i'm not mistaken. Same one?

No

Well, you beat me to it

tubes tubes tubes !!!
http://www.lfgss.com/thread96737.html#post3244004