Is this old barbell worth re-habbing? If so, how?

[mikepwagner]

I was at a used fitness equipment store today, and I was looking for a bar with a center knurl for squats - the bar I bought a couple of months ago - before I looked at any videos - does not have a center knurl.

Their used bars were $75, and I picked up this bar on more or less of a whim. It is a pretty wide bar - about 31.5 mm - and like an idiot, I did not check it for straightness at the store before I picked it up.

Not quite sure why I picked this one - maybe because it didn’t have any kind of shiny finish? It just looked a solid steel bar.

When I got home, I checked it for straightness- rolling it in the J hooks and it seems as though one end did not vary against a line on a pole, and the other varied by about 0.6 mm.

Is that too much to be useful?

It’s pretty noisy when the ends spin.

It does not have spring clips holding the end caps in - it looks as though it has some kind of hollow pin holding everything in place.

Are those in fact some kind of pin? Do I drive them through or use some kind of tool to pull them out?

Is it worth the effort?

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[Mark Rippetoe]

It's straight enough for a $75 bar. The vast majority of 31.5 mm bars are junk, made of 1018 instead of 4140 withe the diameter as a substitute for decent steel. The pin holds the sleeve on the bar.

[Lost and Found]

Absolutely clean it up. Lack of a center knurl isn't the end of the world especially since you already bought it.

Restoring a Rusty Barbell - YouTube

[EdTice]

It's straight enough for a $75 bar. The vast majority of 31.5 mm bars are junk, made of 1018 instead of 4140 withe the diameter as a substitute for decent steel. The pin holds the sleeve on the bar.

Does any of that matter if it's just being used to squat as long as the knurling gets the job done until the OP gets their squat up enough to bend it further? Of course I would have sold the bar with no center-knurling and bought the SS bar but that's not the original question!