1994 GT Pro Freestyle Tour ***NOW FINISHED*** (Lots of pics)

[midschooljon]

New to the forum so not sure if this should be in here or tech section? Ive seen a few build threads in both places so seeing as its mid school I'll start in here...

Im busy doing a full restoration on a 1994 GT Prof Freestyle Tour. Ever since I opened BMX Plus mag in 94 I have wanted a GT PFT. A few weeks ago I picked one up on Ebay in a sorry state and the plan is to get it back to its former glory. The end result will hopefully look something like this.



This is how the bike arrived at my place. Although it is it pretty bad shape it is largely original in terms of parts. Sadly the stuff that is missing is going to be quite hard to find but I'm sure I will get there in the end.



As soon as I had it I set about stripping it down and seeing what I could salvage and what needed to be replaced. All of the chrome as in real bad shape with rust covering pretty much everything. I heard that Oxalic acid was the way to go about getting rid of it so got the chrome bits separated out and ready to dip.



The previous owner had only used the bike for flatlad so the frame, fork and bars was perfectly strait and free of dents. Id never used Oxalic acid before but it it worked the bike should tidy up quite nicely. I mixed about 150g of OA crystals in about 25l of water and put all the parts in. The mixture was quite weak compared to what others suggested, but as it was my first time using it I figured it would be better to take it easy.



I was amazed at how quickly it started to work, and after only 1 hour you could already see the rust dissolving into the acid solution. In the end I left the parts int he mixture for 5 hours and I was really impressed with the results. Here are some before and after pics. Please note the after pics have had NO polishing done to the items. They have just been taked strait out of the solution. Im going to polish them with peek polish over the weekend and will post more pics once that is done. For now though you can see the type of result OA can achieve.

Bars before:







Bars after:







Forks Before:







Forks after:







The tub I used wasnt big enough to do the frame but Im going to do that in the next few days. All in all though Im really impressed, and after polishing all the parts should come up nicely.

As the bike arrived with no decals I searched for some replacements but couldn't find anything. I guess with mid school stuff not being as popular as old school there isn't as big a demand for repro decals. As a result Ive decided to create my own repro decals for the frame to the highest possible standard. I started out by gathering as much reference as I could have the originals and then dew up a set in Illustrator. After that I printed out a few different sized sheets to see what would be the correct size stickers for the frame. I cut out the ones that looked about the right size and roughly masked them onto the bike.



I used this to make a few final tweaks to the sizes of the stickers and am now almost ready to send them off to get printed.

Thats as far as I have got for the moment but will do more updates as I make further progress.

[Jaymz]

Nice mate looking good

[kev-s]

looks good


those pegs in the oa bath look to be standard hand grenades

[lk_97]

Nice, looking forward to seeing this finished

[midschooljon]

Cheers for the comments guys.

@Kevs - Yes those are Standard Granades. The OA bath had a few other bits in there from other projects as well. 

[kev-s]

cool

what are the 1&1/8th forks in the oa bath, they look like s&m pitchforks

[midschooljon]

cool

what are the 1&1/8th forks in the oa bath, they look like s&m pitchforks

That thread will be posted in about 5 mins 

[kev-s]

ooohh interesting

[midschooljon]

Managed to get the correct sprocket for the bike. Really pleased about this as the bike came with an ugly Xposure bash disk.

[WINI]

Nice work and good to see a patient restore.

 

[harris]

done a lovely job mate,i will await the finished item   

[harris]

where you based jon .

[midschooljon]

where you based jon .

Im up in Chester Le Street (County Durham).

[midschooljon]

Some more parts arrived for the PFT today. Im really excited to have found this GT stem for the bike. All the Euro models had Dyno stems on them and it never looked as good as the US spec GT in my opinion. As soon as I got this bike I had my eye out for one of these stems so was really excited when I stumbled across on in the for sale section. I still need loads of bits to get this bike how I want it but its coming together slowly.

[ED209]

ooo I love an acid bath me... sooo rewarding pulling them out and seeing the result.

Great work 

[brummie]

nice
im doing one of these too

[midschooljon]

nice
im doing one of these too

Awesome! Got any pics of yours?

[nosher70]

Awesome!!  I bought a frameset from backyard in 1994 for about 200 sheets. the decals were blue though.....

nice resto!

[midschooljon]

Awesome!!  I bought a frameset from backyard in 1994 for about 200 sheets. the decals were blue though.....

nice resto!

Thanks! I think the 93 models had blue/yellow decals. Aside from that the frames were almost identical for both years. I managed to stumble across an awesome find for this bike today! Cant believe I actually found one but going to keep it under wraps until it arrives. 

[harris]

this under wraps thing haha im on it to jon,had a super find today on ebay.

[midschooljon]

this under wraps thing haha im on it to jon,had a super find today on ebay.

haha, I guess its not too hard to figure out... Now if only I could find some GT hubs and some 2.1 Logo tyres and I could start putting this bike back together again! Ive got a feeling tracking those last 2 bits down is going to be a nightmare though. 

[GTnumber1]

Awesome!!  I bought a frameset from backyard in 1994 for about 200 sheets. the decals were blue though.....

nice resto!

Thanks! I think the 93 models had blue/yellow decals. Aside from that the frames were almost identical for both years. I managed to stumble across an awesome find for this bike today! Cant believe I actually found one but going to keep it under wraps until it arrives. 

93 DECALS were blue, white red and purple   

[midschooljon]

Few more bits arrived today. The bash guard is for the PFT but the seat will be going on another project. Really pleased to have found a bash guard! It was the one item I wrote off as not being able to include on this bike and then this one popped up while looking for soemthing completely different. Almost have all the bits I need now so itching to start putting it back together. Just need the 48 hole GT hubs and Im done.

[midschooljon]

Ive been slowly chipping away at the list of things to do and here are a few updates. Firstly I finally managed to finish the decal art by piecing together various bits of reference. I cant wait to get these on the bike now 



I also started tidying up the brakes that will be going back on the bike. It arrived with 2 boas but as the original had a pitbull on the back I dug out on old one I had from years ago. It was in bas shape so I gave it a fresh coat of paint and its looks almost new now. I chose the best of the 2 Boas and stripped it befroe cleaning it and putting it back together. I still need to find some new chrome nuts for it but asie from that I think its good to go. Finally the levers were pretty chewed up on top (bike was owned by a flatlander) so I stripped them down and refurbished those as well. I still need to sort out the locking buttons as they are still a bit scratched up but they are looking a lot better now.



I also managed to get myself a lay back post as the bike came with original post cut into a strait post, as well as a the original double bold seat clamp. Im waiting for both of those to arrive but when they do I will start building the bike back up again. ( still need some GT 48 hole hubs though )

[midschooljon]

Started building the bike back up today. All was going well until I fitted the bashguard 

Looks like Im going to have to get some adapters made as finding the other mounting bracket is highly unlikely.