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Rust removal on the CCM Galaxie

Rust removal on the CCM Galaxie

Kitchen chemistry is intrinsically cool. We have demonstrated it previously, with lots of thanks to the awesome Green Cleaning post from Riding Pretty for giving us the idea. However, today was a beautiful spring day, and Angel’s CCM Galaxie needed some love, so we pulled out the lemon juice and aluminum foil again.

Before we started.

The underside of the grips, where sun and use have had no chance to turn them black and grungy.

Uh-oh, is that the dreaded Shimano 333 hub?
(Sigh.)

Hm. Actually, it’s a Shimano 333 coaster brake, not the 333 3-speed hub that Sheldon Brown warns can fail catastrophically. The guys over at the Old Roads forum say that the 333 designation was used on a number of pre-1975 Shimano parts – so maybe the coaster brake will work okay?

The original tires are rock-hard and have deep fissures, so they will definitely need to be replaced. But for the record, the originals are Canadian-made Nylon 26 x 1 3/8 Clipper tires marked for EA3 rims:

The rims are unmarked except for this:

Just in case you needed evidence that rusty chrome plus lemon juice plus aluminum foil plus a little elbow grease magically equals shiny fabulous chrome:

This especially rusty area on the front fender was what we tried first, to compare methods. RustCure and extra-fine steel wool was working okay, but couldn’t get everything; aluminum foil and lemon juice worked like magic. (Angel, is there anything you’d like to add, since you worked on this section?) That remaining spot you can see along the edge is bare steel under the chrome plating.

To our amazement, the foil-and-lemon-juice method even removed the discolouration on the white painted decal – without scratching up the decal (I rubbed VERY gently). The chainguard now looks practically new.