OK. So tonight (if you've been following my waffles) you will note I got the loft sorted. It feels enormous, not having to manoeuvre around 3 bikes any more. I also tidied up my shit, and found that I have an insane amount of bike seats. About 12. I felt like fooking Chris Hansen "Why don't you take a seat? right over there..." FFS.
So I finally cleared it all up. Took hours. Any way, then when I had I saw the Fatboy leaning against the wall looking incredibly sorry for itself. I felt bad, because I bought it before the Dirt Bike and it was supposed to be done next, but it scared me a bit. Let me explain that. I bought it for peanuts. Like, I literally stole it.
It popped up on Farcebook one night and the guy wanted eighty quid. Those wheels though, god what a travesty. I already had a Huffy in the shed, and didn't fancy another ton of pig iron so I haggled him down to sixty quid, delivered, for the rest. Now if you look at it you will notice it has a 28t Profile sprocket on. With a 17t back wheel. Now I don't know what the hell this guy was doing? but whatever it was it wasn't far. I hoped that sprocket would be in good shape, but it had less teeth than me. And I have had half of mine removed due to constant grinding and biting.
OK, so let's go back in time to when it arrived.
The good.
Original frame
Original fork
Original stem
Original seat clamp
Original Post
THE seat (these were actually quite expensive TBH. The company is now defunct but they made high end race parts for many years).
The main very expensive decals are OK
The bad.
Paint is absolutely wrecked. It is a lot worse than it looks. In fact, there is less paint on there than paint itself.
The bars are a horror show (god only knows where he found those !, I wouldn't want to look there tbh)
The sprocket was wrecked
The cranks were total cack
I broke a knuckle removing the BB. And no, I shit thee not.
That wasn't one, or two, but three hammer strikes. The BB was incredibly greasy (now we know why there's a world shortage of crude oil) and the red mist set in. I really must stop doing that...
The frame is not alu as I assumed, it's actually 4130. I had no idea they did them in two different metals !
The rear and fork decals are toast.
OK, so I have most of it right? you try finding any desirable frame, fork, stem, seat post and seat for sixty quid. OK so let's cover why the paint is wrecked.
Again it doesn't look that bad. I figured out it was steel, BTW, when I noticed it was rusty
Like, how does alu rust ?
Any way, I asked a few questions over at the museum and yes, it is 4130. There's actually a decal behind the seat tube saying so
Now again, I have lots of street/park/freestyle bikes. I even have a 100% dedicated flatland rig now. So I wanted a couple of jumpers. What was really awesome is that the bike had a top of the line DX brake on. That wasn't stock. It's the posh one with this lever.
OK, so ignore those bars. They weren't the kinda red I was thinking (I was a little bummed but god they couldn't have worked out better for my Metal Kizz !) any way, I cleaned up the lever, painted the logo back on the post (it's not perfect but it's a dramatic improvment over SPECIAL..ED. (get it?) and then I put it all away for the winter.
And then I bought wheels, and cranks, and a chain ring and bolts etc.
Oh and a sealed BB (Shimano square taper with a SRAM/Truativ Euro to yank adapter). I know, I was going to use those wheels on the Mongoose but now I am not. That can wait tbh. Better shot of the cranks
They weigh.... Nothing ! and they cost about fifteen quid ! Now the HEMI decals on the chainstays have had it. However, I never liked that name any way. I always preferred Fatboy, but I guess they got it in the ear from the P.C crowd? IDK. So those are off now and a buddy out in the states sourced and sent me these.
If you still don't think the paint is that bad look at this.
That is up close. It looks like that all over, and worse. So then I was going to use those Odyssey 4/4 bars on it, but again they weren't right. So again I did the obvious thing and bought these !
lol. why? because they were piss cheap. Twelve quid delivered. Obviously ignore the fact they are radioactive green, I will get to that in a bit. I also bought these tyres.
On sale. However, those *are* going on the goose. I ordered these earlier instead.
Mostly because I found a image of the stock bike and it came with Comp 3 on. Not real Tioga ones, just Specialized ones.
OK so let's get onto the paint. The fork is actually worse than the frame. However, again I don't like the Hemi decals so those are going completely and I will repaint them. There are two white S decals inside the fork, those I will remake myself. So the bars and fork need to be painted. However, what I forgot was just how easy it was to prep factory painted parts. So I will just clean the fork, scuff it all up and.....
Venom red. The bars will get the same. I also ordered this supposedly acrylic "varnish" and will test it out on a couple of test samples.
If it's crap and doesn't go rock hard they can stay satin. OK so here is the plan. Very, very carefully sand the frame down around the decals. Fiddly but not hard. Mask up the large frame decals and two MX decals with this.
Now you can see why I was playing with it the other day ! and also this.
Then paint the black. After that I will remove the mask, clean the decals (they are greasy AF) and then hopefully if that clear is any good clear the whole frame, protecting those almost impossible to get one hundred pound decals.
That is the plan any way. I would die inside a little if it ended up like this poor soul.
Dear Oldschoolers. DON'T DO THAT TO MID SCHOOL CLASSICS ! Love me xxxxx
