Cycling UK Forum

Hi. I have a Raleigh-framed 531st tourer, built up for me in 1988 by a LBS. The frame number is WD6000546 . It has a transfer on the seat tube which says GVOD in a stylised logo. There is another decal on the chain stay which says “Raleigh Lightweight Frames”. The paint job is a shaded light gold/ bronze as shown in the attached pic. I have converted it to flat bars, and use it as a dry weather weekend tourer.
My question is this.The paintwork is a bit distressed in places, and has been touched up with Hammerite gold paint in places to keep rust at bay. Is the advice to have it resprayed professionally, continue to touch it up or leave it alone? If a respray, with what?
Cheers fenmanctc

It very much depends on where the corrosion is and how deep. Can you take photos of the affected area? In addition you would do well to assess the inside of the tubes to see if there is corrosion there too. Some of Raleigh’s frame protection treatment was excellent but I can’t say if it was used at the time your frame was produced.
The lettering you describe is actually GODV, the moniker of Gerald O’Donovan who was the manager of Raleigh’s Leightweigh Division at the time.
They are excellent frames, on the whole, and worth investing a bit of time and effort.

peetee wrote:Some of Raleigh’s frame protection treatment was excellent but I can’t say if it was used at the time your frame was produced.

IME those frames did receive a grey electrophoretic paint coating, and it should be fairly easy to confirm it once the seatpost and/or stem are removed.

from your frame number, best information available suggests that

W = Nottingham (after 1981)
D = ~March
6 = 1986

So it is a Nottingham-built 'lightweight unit' frame.

If 1986 is correct, when this frame was built the SBDU was still in operation at Ilkeston, headed up by O'Donovan. I don't know for sure but the GVOD transfer is probably not original to the frame...? IIRC by 1988 they were slapping those stickers on anything out of the 'special products' unit (which was mostly the old 'lightweight unit' combined with whatever SBDU bits/people were relocated from Ilkeston). Also if the paint is original, where are all the other transfers? I wonder if this frame was paint-damaged in transit or something (in 1986), sent back to Raleigh for refinishing, and then sold later? At one time they would do that, obviously with the then 'current' paint job on an older frame, this is one of the few ways this can happen. So you may find that you have the paint scheme that was current in 1987 or 1988 even though the frame is older than that.

in general I would say 'you only get original paint once' and in addition it is unlikely that a (non-factory) respray will duplicate the EP coating. So for two reasons you might be better off patching the original paint up if possible. If you can obtain a good match for the paint (and it won't be difficult to do better than gold hammerite…?) and maybe clear-coat the lot you can make the bike look good and it will last in the envisaged use, even if the same paint might be more of a worry for wintertime use.

cheers

It would be a nice treat to have a professional respray or maybe a cheaper powder coat job.

If you go the respray route be mindful of lead times - the job I sent to Argos in January won’t come back to me until late April.

We're LBS able to order Raleigh frames without stickers???

I must get my one up and running for the summer.

Cheers James

The paint and stickers are original. Raleigh sold these frames through their dealers for a couple of years or so, and the price was £125. They were advertised in a small box advertisement in the Cycletouring magazine. I suspected that they were the result of excess production capacity for the frames used in the Randonneur bikes, and were given a cheaper and nastier paint job and the spoke holder omitted to maintain the distinction and prevent the sales of these relatively low price frames from undermining sales of the Randonneur.

There are some good pictures of one of these frames in the link below, which refers to the frame as type/model 8807.

https://picclick.co.uk/Raleigh-special-type-8807-Reynolds-531st-touring-frame-402642159120.html

The Raleigh sticker on the downtube was usually a pale cream which does not show up well against the light paint on the downtube. The font/lettering in the piclick link above is like that used on the Randonneur, but I think most of the frames had a different lettering consisting of RALEIGH in slightly sloping outlined block capitals.

I remember there being a gold / bronze 531 ST Raleigh tourer in the late 80s, probably more like 87 or 88 than 86, because I tried to buy one and couldn't due to them selling out. They were deemed to be very nice at the time.

I couldn't see the lettering! Sorry!

This is my one.

Cheers James

slowster wrote:The paint and stickers are original. Raleigh sold these frames through their dealers for a couple of years or so, and the price was £125. They were advertised in a small box advertisement in the Cycletouring magazine. I suspected that they were the result of excess production capacity for the frames used in the Randonneur bikes.

that makes sense but should it not be a 'royal' frame?

OPs bike (edit maybe?) has horizontal dropouts BTW; did the randonneur model not have vertical dropouts in 1986 when this frame was built?

Like this 1986 randonneur?
https://www.flickr.com/photos/jwright/albums/72157623785668147

FWIW there was vast overproduction/overstocking of touring bikes around that time; they had been big sellers in the years previously but the arrival of MTBs completely changed the market.

cheers

If getting a respray, something you might want to consider is whether to have any alterations made/braze-ons added at the same time. In particular there are two things that I would want done:

1. Respace the rear end to accept 135mm OLN hubs. I would do this even if I had a perfectly good existing 126mm wheel, given the potential difficulties/poor choice that are likely to arise when trying to find a replacement hub or freewheel.

2. Replace the rear brake cable hanger with one incorporating a threaded adjuster. For some unknown reason, most/all of those Raleigh frames had a hanger which was sized to take only a small stepped ferrule, which makes adjusting the rear brake for pad wear a pain in the neck.

Argos has already been mentioned. Another possibilty might be Dave Yates (if he has not yet completely retired and is still taking such work on). I liked the respray he did of this Raleigh Royal a couple of years ago:

viewtopic.php?f=5&t=120658#p1254267

I don't know whether paints in the 1980s contained toxic ingredients now banned, but a modern respray is unlikely to last as well as the original has. Modern paints just aren't as durable.

Brucey wrote:that makes sense but should it not be a 'royal' frame?

Sorry, yes I think you are right. I was never completely au fait with the differences between the Randonneur and Royal frames of that era (was it just that the Randonneur had a spoke holder?). Whenever the Royal is mentioned, I always think of the previous version with centre pull brakes and a very nice burgundy red colour scheme, rather than that later version.

Brucey wrote:OPs bike has horizontal dropouts BTW; did the randonneur model not have vertical dropouts in 1986 when this frame was built?

I think they are vertical drop outs. The photograph looks deceptive because the bottom of the aluminium rack has been bent (presumably because the frame is so big that the rack was difficult/impossible to get level, even with the adjustable struts attaching to the seat stays made as short as possible).

slowster wrote:

Brucey wrote:OPs bike has horizontal dropouts BTW; did the randonneur model not have vertical dropouts in 1986 when this frame was built?

I think they are vertical drop outs...

actually I think you are right, photo is not that clear, failing eyesight...etc. .

cheers

slowster wrote:

peetee wrote:Some of Raleigh’s frame protection treatment was excellent but I can’t say if it was used at the time your frame was produced.

IME those frames did receive a grey electrophoretic paint coating, and it should be fairly easy to confirm it once the seatpost and/or stem are removed.

I got a Raleigh Royal from that era (6 speed) via a forum member which had dreadful paint externally but wasn't too bad internally and had the grey coating mentioned, pictured at bottom bracket,
The frame was still pretty solid underneath the surface rust externally..
I believe it had done ...a lot... of all weather miles, before it came to me.


Edit; picture added to show grimness, I think the salt had got at it, there was some pitting on the chainstays under all the surface rust.