The paint job is crap but then I wasn't expecting it to look professional - maybe a little better than I got but not professional. Eventually I might have my friend Paul Evans powder coat it for me... when I have more money than I know what to do with that is.
The rear wheel is a little skewed (the freewheel wobbles ever so slightly) but for an old bike, it's very rideable. I also had some trouble with the chain and had to take a link out making the chain too short. I'll pickup another from my LBS tomorrow.
I wrapped the bars with cloth tape hiding the brake cables giving it a little bit of a modern look along with the Tektro levers that I swapped out for the linears on Beth's Surly. The original stem I had to hack off, then notch so I could grip the quill with a vise to get it out of the head tube. Luckily I found (and stole) another but shorter one from an old Schwinn I found in the basement.
I will probably ride it around like this for a while but was also thinking I might turn it into a fixie just for fun, not that I'm interested in fixies at all (way to many long steep hills around here) . It was definitely a good learning experience though and I'm now thinking about my next project... maybe a mid 80s Trek tourer (420, 520, 620 or 720) series.
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