Raleigh Chopper MK2 - revisiting my first unfinished project

Roll back about 20 years, I was an idiot pre-teen (standard) who was lucky enough to have parents keen to pull my face out of the Game Boy for ten minutes now and then. For my engineer stepdad, that took the form of introducing me to the mechanical bullshit he got up to back when he was my age. He used to tell me stories about him sending it down the local tip on his Raleigh Chopper, about how he snapped the frame and how his dad got the local blacksmith (!) to rebraze the joint so he could do it all again.

He eventually moved onto a 10 speed road bike and then drifted into driving shitbox cars around the rural Essex lanes as was a rite of passage for a man of his age, but the Chopper antics stuck with him. So one day he turned up at home with this lightly used mark 2 Chopper, and the plan was for us to work on it together.

That never happened, as I moved onto my own 10 speed road bike antics and caused all sorts of fun problems as I rolled into my teens. The mechanical interest my stepdad sowed never went away, and I’ve since become a reasonably component bike mechanic, but the Chopper was left languishing in dry storage for a couple decades.

Now I’m in my thirties and a bit less of an idiot, I’ve decided it’s finally time to bring it back to life. I don’t have a kid who could have a dumb time riding it, and it’ll never be a good bike, but I want to finish the project…

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Resto with a good story. Like it. Subbed.

Despite all the crust, it’s surprisingly decent - it was clearly only ever lightly used, and everything is free moving. The chrome is gone but the underlying metal is sound. The chain guard is missing, but thankfully we stashed a NOS one back in the day - it’s worth over a hundred quid now for some reason.

Plan is a strip and respray, re chrome all the bits, recover the saddle, and generally get it looking like a new bike again.

It’ll be a total money pit but why the hell not really

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I got on with the fun bit and dismantled the thing tonight, with some help from a self-published Kindle book. Everything came apart weirdly easily, but the serial number probably explains why:

This means it was built in November 1982, so right at the very end of the production run. So a combination of light use and being as young as they come is working out in my favour.

Next challenge is getting the kickstand out - sounds like it needs a homemade tool of some sort

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Youngs bike shop down in Elmers End/West Wickham is a sort of specialist Chopper shop - miserable git but has loads of them , parts and tools , and knowledge ….

Your step dad sounds like a good bloke (probably in his late 50s?!)
I’d try and clean and polish it up as the paint is only original once. But…. Your bike so go full on fadez if that’s your thing

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I’d try and clean and polish it up as the paint is only original once.

This all day.

You should at least T Cut and some elbow greese before you think about spraying it.

Cool project and a brilliant story.

Your step dad sounds like a good bloke

Yup - real trad dad (only ever seen him cry once, when his dog died) but did the work to make bikes and trains and history stuff interesting to a kid. Also an outrageously kind grandad to my toddler niece, which is cool to see.

You should at least T Cut and some elbow greese before you think about spraying it.

Yeah will give it a go - some of it is pretty far gone so the rat aesthetic might not work out so well. Will at least assess before sending off for paint

I’d try and clean and polish it up as the paint is only original once.

Cool project! But this please^!! The condition of the paint doesn't look too bad

Nice project, subbed

People always say that cola and tin foil brings rusty chrome back to life, so for the sake of SCIENCE I'd like to see if it does anything on this before you have the parts rechromed.