Golden Arrow bike curb find, treasure or not?

[LtSpeed03]

This past weekend my next door neighbor left this Golden Arrow bike with a Suntour/Shimano groupo on the curb after his garage sale w/ a free sign on it. I pumped the flat tires, sized it, took it for a spin and considered keeping it, thinking I could revive this bike easily. After several hours of elbow grease and removing who knows how many years worth of grease and oil on every part of the bike, I was able to make most of it shine. I'm glad the rims had all that grease on it since they shined instantly!

I have new gum walled tires in order, natural handlebar tape, a new chain and brake cables. I already replaced the shifter cables from my stock. The bb spins OK and the rear hub has some play in it but I should be able to fix that.

So on to my questions, I have no idea what year this bike is from. I've searched the internet for Golden Arrow and all I get is the Shimano group Golden Arrow. I'm assuming this is a low-end bike from the 80's. The bb has nothing that looked like a brand or year but I guess that perhaps because it was using Shimano Dee-50 someone can have a clue or maybe someone can recognize it and tell me anything about this bike. The hubs are Kun Teng. The down-tube decal is kinda cheesy since it looks like a sheet of laminate paper wrapped around it. I'm thinking of removing it unless some one cries foul ;)

Here's a link to all the images that I took while cleaning it if you need to see more that what I put below:
http://s95138737.onlinehome.us/cycling/index.php

[moschika]

looks like it would make a fine single speed townie.

[Dave Hickey]

It's not real valuable but it is in great condition and has nice lug work..+1 on the townie conversion

[racerx]

a real lost art. It's a shame that decals have replaced the lost medium of badges. Kind of like album art I suppose.

[rcnute]

Is that overheating behind the head tube?

[LtSpeed03]

Here's the finished product. I pieced it all together and I ended up having to replace the stem, brakes and handlebar from a free donor bike with similar brand components. The donor bike included a Brooks CR3 plastic saddle which I put on this one. The bike looks much better in person, I'd say, the chrome just pops! I took it on the usual lunch ride w/ the guys and I gotta say it took a lot of extra effort to get the bike moving vs. their lightweight machines but I beat them to the top of the "hill" and I got the final sprint (w/ clipless pedals)! ;) It was my first time with friction shifters and I found myself fiddling with it after every shift but otherwise it's a smooth ride. Perhaps, I'd leave it when going downtown. I might get a Moderniste bottle cage w/ clips to mount it to the downtube to complete the look, but besides I think it's finished.

[dytakeda]

Nice job on the clean up!

[innergel]

That bike looks great for a freebie curb grab!

If you wanted to tweak it a bit, you could move the shifters onto the downtube and swap the brake levers for something else to get rid of the suicide levers. Maybe find some groovy hoods for the new levers too.

[LtSpeed03]

Thanks for all the comments! I agree that the levers could be upgraded since they're not the most comfortable. I'll see what I can do about that. Re moving the shifter levers down, I handn't thought about it, well I just figured the diameter of the clamp was not the same. I'll see if it fits. If not, I have another one from another bike that I may be able to use. One thing that I do want to remove is the spoke protector behind the cassette to make it look more racy, I think it gives it a "cheap" look. Hopefully my LBS get that removed since I don't have 2 prong Suntour cassette removal tool. Thanks!

[holdsworthy]

lovely bike! I believe Shimano golden Arrow is equivalent to 105 series, a mid 80s gruppo.
I've got a pair of really nice retro Italian lightweight bottle cages on ebay :-)
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.d...#ht_554wt_1141

[LtSpeed03]

So I removed the spoke protector, moved the shifters to the downtube and replaced the saddle w/ an old leather Brooks saddle I had. I tried removing the suicide levers but it made the reach too far, so I'm leaving it as is for now.
Here's the updated picture:

[racerx]

Always glad to see a recycled cycle and yours is really quite nice.