A friend found this Allez SE at a local thrift store and called me. I immediately drove over, kicked the tires and purchased it. I already had a red '88 Specialized Sirrus (what the Allez SE became a couple years later) and this would be a perfect match as it fit my wife fairly well.
I proceeded to tear it completely down. The headset and hub cartridge bearings will need replacing sooner rather than later, but the only major replacement at the time is the bottom bracket. The original Specialized bottom bracket was a cone/cup arrangement and totally shot. A new Shimano UN55 fit nicely but the sides of the bottom lug had to be sanded, primed and painted.
Paint - obviously I wasn't going to be able to match it perfectly, but the local NAPA did a pretty good job. I call it a "five foot" paint job (it looks good from five feet). You can see my sloppy painting on the seat tube lug below.
The other consumables, cables and housing were all replaced (except for the metal spring housing for the rear derailleur). The original group is intact: Suntour "Superbe" - just a step below "Superbe Pro."
For my wife's sake I replaced the original 6-speed cassette with a wide-range 14-28 7-speed cassette. After re-dishing the wheel, I salvaged a long screw from an old Suntour XCM derailleur and replaced the original B-screw so it now shifts all the way up to the largest cog without complaining. Good thing too because the Specialized crank has Campy BCD and can't go any smaller than a 42T chainring.
