It's actually my old road bike that I sold to a friend of mine 12 years ago. I saw her last weekend and ended up bringing it home with me. My plan is to (maybe) turn it into a fixie. I'm a little overwhelmed by the task - mostly because I'm not sure where to start. I guess I'll order some new tires and then start taking everything apart.

I could use some help on breaking this job down into bite sized pieces.

It's actually my old road bike that I sold to a friend of mine 12 years ago. I saw her last weekend and ended up bringing it home with me. My plan is to (maybe) turn it into a fixie. I'm a little overwhelmed by the task - mostly because I'm not sure where to start. I guess I'll order some new tires and then start taking everything apart.

I could use some help on breaking this job down into bite sized pieces.

Not to hard to do as long as the old parts are reusable. Old Moto's have a lot of funky threading. The headset is French threaded and the bottom bracket is Swiss threaded. The pedals are probably French threaded too. If they are all in relatively good shape, go for it...

Here are some tips:

1. Buy some short stack BMX chainring bolts. They're only about $5 and you can remove the large chainring and still use the small ring and cranks...
2. Your biggest task is finding a rear wheel. Since the old wheel is probably french threaded, you really need a fixed rear wheel. EBay is a good souce for wheels...

Step 1.
Take apart everything. Throw away nothing, I repeat, throw away nothing. If the threading is as Dave suggests (and I believe he has a 98.999% correct rating so far) you may need to use most of those old parts. The tricky items will be:

Bottom Bracket
Headset
Cranks
Pedals
Maybe Stem
Maybe Seat Post

Once everything is disassembled, the fun begins. Building a fixie is a great way to learn to build a bike. Very simple!

Step 2.
Wash and clean the frame/fork. Don't use a water hose and keep water out of the tubes as best as you can. On cheap rebuilds, I'll spray some WD-40 on the inside of the tubes as a rust preventative. Not the best, but OK.

Since this bike has some nostalgia for you, I'd be willing to spend some bucks and time on the rebuild. I'd love to come across my old Panasonic Team Europe or my Pinnarello or the old Merckx I ditched because they were heavy steal. I am sure I'd embrace anyone of them and beg for their forgiveness and promise to never make that same mistake. But I digress...

Step 3.
Grease every thread, pack the headset and bb with a good water resistant grease. Clean all threads. Carefully reassemble the bb and headset.

Reassemble the bike with seatpost, seat, stem, bars, front (and rear-optional) brake lever and caliper and etc. Get some really cool tape, please don’t use black. All of the bikes I own have black and I hate black tape.

Hopefully, the only out of pocket expense will be rear wheel, cog and tire/tube and chain.

What size rings do you have? If you have a 40 - 42 small ring, that would be perfect. You can start out with a 42front X 18rear or something like that. Get a new bmx or single speed chain.

Keep the platform pedals for a while.

Most important of all, POST A PIC. Take this as an opportunity to document the build steps to help and encourage others to take on the challenge.

Not to hard to do as long as the old parts are reusable. Old Moto's have a lot of funky threading. The headset is French threaded and the bottom bracket is Swiss threaded. The pedals are probably French threaded too. If they are all in relatively good shape, go for it...

Here are some tips:

1. Buy some short stack BMX chainring bolts. They're only about $5 and you can remove the large chainring and still use the small ring and cranks...
2. Your biggest task is finding a rear wheel. Since the old wheel is probably french threaded, you really need a fixed rear wheel. EBay is a good souce for wheels...

are hard to come by. So basically, if I can find a fixed rear wheel that's 27" I'm good to go? I'm trying to picture the BMX chainring bolts...

Now you need to post a pic. My husband laughs at me because when I have something to assemble, I don't ever read it - just look at the pics.

And yes, this bike has some nostalgia for me. It was my first "real" road bike (not counting the old Murray 10 speed I rode around in highschool). I did my first metric century on it, my first charity ride, basically all the firsts were on this bike. When I got it back and looked at the saddle, I couldn't believe I ever rode 65+ miles on it. It's one of those wide saddles with the springs underneath. Only a 25 year old butt could handle that saddle. ;-)

are hard to come by. So basically, if I can find a fixed rear wheel that's 27" I'm good to go? I'm trying to picture the BMX chainring bolts...

If you have a set of 700 (standard road size) around, place them on the bike. If the brake pads will reach the rim, you are good to go. 700c will offer much more choices in tires and rim selection. I'd go ahead and buy a front and rear.

If the 700c is too short for the brakes to reach, you could get a set of long reach brake calipers and switch to 700c or buy a 27 inch rear set up. Make sense?

The bmx chain ring bolts are in reference to your crankset. The crankset, I assume is a double, two rings. If you remove one ring, those 5 little chain ring bolts will be too long to hold the single ring still. The bmx chain ring bolts have a shorter sleeve. You could also use washers.

Hope that helps.

are hard to come by. So basically, if I can find a fixed rear wheel that's 27" I'm good to go? I'm trying to picture the BMX chainring bolts...

The silver bolts are for a double chainring set up. The blue bolts are shorter and used for single chainrings.

The silver bolts are for a double chainring set up. The blue bolts are shorter and used for single chainrings.

Between your pics and racerx's description, I now understand. Thanks.

If you have a set of 700 (standard road size) around, place them on the bike. If the brake pads will reach the rim, you are good to go. 700c will offer much more choices in tires and rim selection. I'd go ahead and buy a front and rear.

If the 700c is too short for the brakes to reach, you could get a set of long reach brake calipers and switch to 700c or buy a 27 inch rear set up. Make sense?

The bmx chain ring bolts are in reference to your crankset. The crankset, I assume is a double, two rings. If you remove one ring, those 5 little chain ring bolts will be too long to hold the single ring still. The bmx chain ring bolts have a shorter sleeve. You could also use washers.

Hope that helps.

I'll put it on and see how it fits. thanks.

My first "real" bike was an old Moto, too. I'd still have it if I hadn't destroyed it in a crash 10 years or so ago. If nothing else, I'd like to compare it to my Rambouillet, to see if it was really as good as I remember or if nostalgia has just taken over.
The French Factor is likely to hit you in a few spots, already mentioned. Everything's just a LITTLE different, but only different enough that parts won't fit, not enough to make any difference. A standard "one-inch" stem, for instance, was 22.2mm. A French stem is 22.0. Won't swap. Rear dropout spacing may be a problem, too. I'm pretty sure it was narrower than today's standard 130mm--might have been 126, though for some reason I'm thinking 120, which I also think is standard for singlespeed hubs....
If nobody else has suggested this, www.sheldonbrown.com has a lot of information on SS and fixie conversions, and lots of parts. Excelsports.com also has a selection, and Rivendell was dabbling, though they're concentrating on their own bikes, not conversion parts. You might also be able to improvise or adapt some stuff. I converted an old Trek tourer to SS for about 15 bucks--$13 for a BMX freewheel, $1 for a spacer and $1 for a cutoff wheel for my Dremel tool, which I used to shorten the chainring bolts to hold the middle ring after I took everything else off.

[QUOTE=Dave Hickey]Not to hard to do as long as the old parts are reusable. Old Moto's have a lot of funky threading. The headset is French threaded and the bottom bracket is Swiss threaded. The pedals are probably French threaded too. QUOTE]

hey dave,

my mid-70's moto has french thread bb too.

and spin, once you break it down and clean it up, see what parts are salvagable. you may not need to get anything except a new chain and brake pads to be rolling.

when i got my old moto, i ran it as a single speed. took off the rear d., was already missing the front and wrapped the chain around one of the freewheel cogs and ran it like that for awhile, at least until the hub axel was bent. then i got a cheap suzue hub and rebuilt it.

what moto do you have?