Well, I was working on that old bike tonight. I took the crank out today and cleaned the bearings and re-packed them. I also took the bearings out of the rear wheel, cleaned them, and re-packed that. I’m happy with how the crank spins now–smooth and silent, but the rear hub still seems a little gritty. I’m going to take it back apart in the morning and try again–I guess I didn’t have it as clean as I had thought. I discovered that setting loose ball bearings wasn’t nearly as scary as I thought it was going to be. So long as you goober plenty of grease in the bearing raceway, you can just stick the ballbearings right in there, and they’ll stay put long enough to get the spindle back in.
Tomorrow I’ll probably do the headset and front wheel, if I don’t run out of grease. I kind of abused my grease privileges tonight, but better to use too much grease than not enough, where bearings are concerned, I think.
I decided against fucking around with the spokes. I’m going to take the wheels to a shop to get those loose spokes tightened back up, and get some new tubes and tires while I’m about it.
Then, I need to get new cables and cable sheathes, stick those on, re-hang the brakes and derailleur, adjust stuff, and go for a test ride.
Should be really easy next time I want to take it apart, to paint it.