Zeus Headset

It was stuck. It would not turn. The grease had turned to hardened tar. I'll admit to using 10W40 to degrease it and free the bearings from the grease turned epoxy. Some elbow grease, Park Polylube 1000 and the headset is as smooth as you would expect a 70's bike to be. The next step, after returning from the beach, is to install the '80's campy brake levers, calipers and pedals.

Fix-ing the Zeus

Over a barbecue, an architect friend of mine who's an avid bike commuter offerred an idea. "What if we could make a fixed out of an old 10 speed but keep the front shifter to yield a 2 speed?" Enjoying my instant flash of mechanical insight, I countered with, "nope, you need slack in the chain to stretch over the larger front gear - a sping of some sort." Mike came back a few months later and offerred the 'spring pulley' idea. So I mentioned it to a bike shop guy on a visit to LA and he produced a smile and a Burley sigulator. It's normal use is fixed conversions but it has just enough spring to allow the shift on this old Zeus.

So now I get to build another fixed rear wheel, clean up the headset, replace the lousy old brakes and pedals with some '80's campy gear. Just dusting this thing off made a difference!

Bigger Wrench and a Nice Old Zeus

Rather than drag the fixed to the shop and admit my defeat in the bottom bracket skirmish. I spent the $10 (ok, so it was $14 but I get to keep it!) at Ace for a monster sized wrench that held the bottom bracket tool perfectly. It's length gave me the leverage I needed to unfreeze the bone dry bottom bracket collar/bolt whateveryoucallit. I reassembled the bottom bracket and added grease to all threaded areas. I just tested it on the same driveway hills that give me the screeching before. Silence. Success.

Now the '70's Zeus is in the stand. It's rusted and modified with non-Zeus parts. A little cleaning here, gasoline and reassembly with a touch of eBay NOS and this vintage ride will be smiling once again. It has a Brooks leather saddle with many miles on it but still in solid shape. That stays unless my bottom rejects it.