1980 Raleigh "Magnum" - Barn Find - Vintage Bicycle Restoration

So you know, I watch a lot of American Pickers, I love that job, and over the first amount of episodes that I've watched, I've kind of got to know that when you find a barn find like this bike, it's probably going to be something that's good underneath. I found this on eBay, didn't pay too much for it, it was like 20 quid, but it's complete. They said it was stored in a, it was literally found in a barn, and look at the pictures, I mean it just looked like some dry dirt, if that makes sense. It didn't look like it had gotten wet and gotten rusty, so I took a chance on it and I bought it. As you can see, I mean, it is absolutely covered. Camera's probably not going to like focus in, so let me zoom in. There you go, so it's covered in dirt, absolutely filthy. I have though, since getting it, decided to wipe down a few parts, like here, and underneath the original bronze, it's still showing through quite nicely. So what I'm going to do on this bike, I'm going to clean it up first, see what it looks like, and then strip it down, replace the cables and wires, and see how it looks. If I've got time, I'm going to polish up all the sort of alloy parts, like the stem bars, brake levers, brake calipers, chain set, seat post maybe, I don't know. That might be the one thing that's steel and chrome underneath, we'll see, but everything looks to be in good condition. I've got some new tyres to put on, because they are cracked, and got the cables ready, so yeah, I'll clean it up and then get back to you in a bit. Didn't I tell you it was going to be good underneath? I've had a quick clean so far, I reckon, and the paintwork underneath is beautiful. The tyres are definitely gone, so I'm going to have to replace them, but I've got them anyway. But yeah, this is the bike frame underneath, super nice condition, chain set going on, even the chain looks fairly good. Derailleur will clean up nicely. We've got, going back up, the brake calipers, which are in nice condition. They're actually, like, the pads on them, I don't think have been used. I don't know if this bike was used at all, I think it was just stored. Seat post and brake guide, got a little bit of rust on them, but I'll just dunk them in some Mark Thalic Acid and then polish them. Back to the front, look at this, there you go. Back to the front, we've got some Positron shifters. I actually snapped the cable when I tried to change the gear, so gear cable is definitely changing. I've got brake cables as well, but the brakes actually work still. So, got those. So, they're indexed as well, I believe, and this bike is a 1980, let me just check, 1980. The code's in there, but you probably won't be able to see, it's too dark. It's 1980. Saddle's cleaned up quite nicely, needs a bit of, like, vinyl care on it, but yeah, very happy with this bike. Barn find, so I'm just going to strip it down now, clean it even more, and we'll see where we go from there. So, when it comes to the wheels on this bike, they actually took most of the sort of damage, I guess, over the years from the ageing. The tyres, oop, not in focus. The tyres, they were shot, so I've replaced them with some Raleigh branded ones, with the gum walls. I've got one dirty. So, I've got new gum wall tyres on it. The cassette that's on there really doesn't have any wear on it at all. The teeth are still, like, perfect on there. So, I'm just going to clean it up and, well, keep it. I'm going to clean all the hubs and spokes later, but the, I guess, majority of the work that needs to be done on these rims, these wheels, are the rims. There's a dirty, there's a bit of rust on them, so I'm going to take them inside once I've cleaned them up and greased the bearings and get them sparkly again. Oh, it's cold today. It's cold. Right, update on the, what is this? The Magnum. It's clean. The wheels are there and they are all cleaned down. The chrome's cleaned, the spokes are cleaned, the hubs have been greased up and cleaned. The freewheel is, like, perfect on there. It's got new tyres on it, new tubes, and I've cleaned up the seat and seat post and lubed all that. I've just taken, obviously, the wheels out, so I've worked on the front end. I need to grease up the headset next. That's my next list to do. So, all the cables are off it. Handlebars are there, they've all been cleaned down. Not sure whether I'm keeping the original tape just yet. I'll have to see until when the bike's together. Oh yeah, one thing I'm not sure if I've actually said on camera, the cables. I haven't got an example here. I thought that the positron, which is here, the positron shifting, I thought that was just a normal cable going through it, like you would on any other gear system, but apparently not. It's actually a solid steel cable. Is this it? I think it is. You're not even going to be able to see that. Let me zoom in. Okay, it's a solid steel cable. You're not going to be able to see that. Okay, but anyway, solid steel cable, which acts as a push-pull when you change the shifter. So, I can't just use a normal cable, firstly because the ends don't even work on it. So, I can't just put a... Yeah, firstly because the ends don't actually work on it. The positron cable has specific built-in ferulence on the cable itself. So, I'm having to order a new one, which is coming from Germany. It was either Germany, the US, or Canada that I could order it from, it seems. I don't know if that's going to get here before or after Christmas. And then when that comes, I can fit it, but I'm just going to grease up the headset now, clean it up as well. I'm going to put the bars back on, fit the brake cables that I've got, and then clean up the derailleurs on the back there. The positron, the battery's running low, and the front. I'm going to take this off and grease it all up. So, yep, okay, battery's running out, so I'm going to have to maybe leave it there for today. So, before the light completely fades this evening, because it is going down now and I'm having to whack the ISO right up. So, what have we done? Quickly, before the battery dies, we've got handlebars back on, we've got headset greased, we've got shifters back on. That's all cleaned up now, nice and shiny. So, I'll just go out for this cable for this side. I can install this cable and put brake cables on. So, I've got some, I've changed from white to black cable on that, so it's better lasting. So, that cable's back on. They're all nicely adjusted there. We've got wheels back on, spinning nicely. Front wheel, obviously, on the front. And we've got the positron shifter, positron derailleur, sorry, all nicely cleaned up. Very quickly, before the battery dies, the positron is kind of indexed, and you can actually see it. Which way does it go? There. You've got some little cogs there that it selects into. So, we've got that to do when the cable arrives. But next is just taking off the crankset, greasing it up, and then installing the cable for the front derailleur. And the bike will almost be there then. Nice and clean barn find. So, this is the Elusive positron shift cable. Special, I don't know if I said, because it's got, it's all one piece really, and it's got a solid steel inner. So, hopefully I'll be able to get that on now. It comes with a pack of little washers and special things to go on. I've got the crankset back on, that's all greased up. So, pretty much now just got to put the shift cables on, and put the chain on, and then she's good to roll again. I am hating this positron, hate it. I can hate it, swear words hate it, swear words hate it. Yeah, it's not the best shifting system in the world is it? I'm having to, I mean there's play here in the derailleur that I can't get rid of. So, it's slow shifting between gears, there's really delay. Sometimes it won't even shift into a gear until you go past it, then go back into it, and it's awful. I had a bit of a fight to get it on to start with, trying to work out which way all the little washers went on. There's a little adjustment screw in there to adjust the position to get it into gears, but it doesn't seem to do anything because there's still this plate in the derailleur. Bloody hell. Yeah, that's the front. I put all that stuff on backwards to start with, but that's all in there now. It's so cold today. Let's see if I'll, I won't be able to do this 100. No, because I've got to change that. I was going to show you a demonstration of how slow it is to get into gears, but actually, let's see if I can put you down somewhere. There we go, done. Silly me, forgot to order an outer cable for this, so I've managed to find a Systermiatra offcut that I had, so that's got a black cable, blackout all the way down there to protect it. Tucked in nicely to the positron things, just cleaned the pedals off. They've come up nicely. Yeah, that's about it. I don't know about whether to change the bar tape or not. It's a bit raggedy around the edges, but I don't know, I kind of like that it's got the original tape on it. I've got the tape anyway to change if need be, so I'll do a montage in a few seconds and if whoever buys this bike wants new bar tape, I will fit it. So there it is guys, one bar on find. Transformed into a beautiful bike. I mean it was hiding underneath all along, but yeah, just sometimes it's worth taking the chance on the bike. It's cleaned up beautifully. Still don't like the positron gears. I do not know what Shimano were thinking with those, but you know, experimental indexing I guess. Yeah, ready for the next owner now. So it was a bit of a learning curve for me with the positron, because I've never worked with that before, but at the end of the day it seems to have worked out and the bike's back to being used again. I mean if you like this video, give me a thumbs up, share it around, comment, subscribe, whichever you want to do. I've got at least two more coming up soon to do. I'm going to throw in a few kind of little how-to videos I guess as well, but a few planned, so stick around for those. And yeah, thanks for watching.