john ames wrote:
> Thank you for your overwhelming support and suggestions. I am stepping
> back to re-evaluate my basic assumption that the bike is Falck tubing.
> I took my rather crappy calipers to the hole again last night and
> found that it is slightly off round by about .01mm, from a max of
> 27.2mm. That tells me that it was either dinged in storage (the seat
> and post are long gone) or it had been over tightened at some point.
> It also points to the bike being made of 531 too. Its been repainted
> and resold several times over so I never knew what year or model it
> was. Looking over the Legnanos on Wooljersey.com I can id the bolt as
> a "Roma" type and note that the lower vertical tange on the seat lug
> protrudes out like the 1968 in the pictures. Unless I am reading it
> wrong, I do have a 27.2 tube.
> Before jumping on any of your offers for 27.0 posts, I will take it
> to my local shop to size it correctly and then decide if I want to
> ream the tube back out true or shim it up from something smaller.
The act of brazing in the top tube can also cause the seat tube to distort -- since the top tube is fixed at both ends, and heating it causes it to expand, it exerts a pressure on the seat tube at the seat lug joint. When the joint is all nice and hot and ready to braze, the metal is relatively soft and quite susceptible to distortion from the top tube's expansion. Brass brazing is particularly vulnerable to this because of the higher temperature involved. Many builders will run a reamer down the seat tube to correct this and allow the seat post to fit properly. Perhaps this is all your frame needs?
--
-John Thompson (john@os2.dhs.org)
Appleton WI USA