Oink oink.

[Midschoolfool]

Round one. As I suspected they are bad. Like, really really bad.



Tops of the legs are extremely rusty.



They had also been spray bombed really really badly. In this pic here if you look at the right leg (which is on the left as it is the back) I am confident the grey/clear over raw was the original finish.



Either way when I bust out the belt sander tomorrow it is all coming off. What I did do was find a pic of a very clean fork, this one.



Hmm....



This is for the little brown bloke from Thailand who was dumb enough to think that the printouts of my Root Down decals he was trying to sell for 55 quid were custom to my frame and not stock. So he got banned.

[Mikku]

I'll shout him out as it goes. God he has some nice gear.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/usr/stevet1_80

And yes, I had a serious argument with myself over that Trail Boss. Not only is is rare, and gorgeous, but its cheap AF too. If I wasn't so busy and so short of space right now (that is being fixed as I type this) he would have been sending me that too !

Just gutted I missed the Standard stem he had a couple of weeks ago.

Those Odyssey forks are well-priced too!

[Midschoolfool]

I got an offer through for the Trail Boss last night. 195. Man that was hard to turn down. Just don't have the space yet

Going to do the final touches to the decal today and then send to my mate for printing. Just waiting for my pain meds to kick in then I will get on with the fork.

[Midschoolfool]

Stage two complete.

[Midschoolfool]

Well I don't know why the images are not being downsized all of a sudden. Well, not here at least.

So after another round of paint stripper in the welds, lots of hand sanding and getting the rust off the welds I put down some paint. And it looked awful. I did everything right too, so it was strange how bad the peel was.





I was pretty pissed off about it tbh. Figured I would have to wet sand it, but then no idea how to get a finish coat down without it doing the same. Came back up here for 30 mins more and a miracle is happening 



The insides of the legs are a bit dry, but that's fine as I intended to wet sand it all out and give it another coat. I finished the decal graphics too. I had to put in every single one of those letters one at a time by hand as the font wasn't available. I got one that was close (the message to the thai thief) but it wasn't correct. As such they were all in a bit out of space etc. The Quality part was too big too. That is all fixed now, so it's off to my mate to print.

[Midschoolfool]

This is some voodoo shit. Another two hours, and.





Wet sand tomorrow. 

[Midschoolfool]

OK so this might have happened.....



Long story short I forgot I had bid on them, and won. Not one to mess people around I paid for them. The Primos are cool and all, but the arms are different lengths and I am all OCD about it.

In other news about an hour ago I brillo padded the fork and shot the second and final coat.

[Midschoolfool]

Fork done.

[Midschoolfool]

So for the past three days I have done a total of absolutely nothing.

For a couple of years I have had this whooshing in my head when I sleep. Figured it was me sleeping poorly, or being too fat. Lost 6 stone, it still persisted. Few days ago after a hard couple of weeks I came to my mother's for a rest and there was a blood pressure machine here. Took my blood pressure and yeah. Not good, not good at all.

I am pretty certain it is being brought on by the brain meds I take. Problem is you get a choice. Take those meds and deal with the physical side effects, or, go out of your trolley. I spent 30 odd years doing the former and have no plans to do it again, so blood pressure meds it is. Because of that I really need to rest up as I won't have access to the meds for a week or so. Good old bank holiday.

Any way, the cranks haven't even shipped out yet and besides I needed a couple more things. Firstly my cable cutters are dead. Noticed they were not popping straight through like they used to, and the last cable I cut with them went south. So I bought another set. Not paying 35 quid for Park tool, because I have had mine 8 years and they cost the same as these new ones, a fiver. By the time I buy 7 sets I will very likely be dead, so yeah no point.



I also needed these. Ran out ages ago, been robbing peter to put on paul etc.



The last of the Ti bolts arrived today, so we now have enough to replace every single one on the bike.



And the front wheel is just sitting there too.



I can't do anything even if I wanted to right now, and I don't. I need the star nut to be able to mount the fork any way, and I don't have it yet. I also sent the decals off to my mate to print, so I am waiting on those, though tbh I could put them on after putting the fork on the bike but I can't do that without a star nut and top cap.

So I'm kind of being forced into resting, which I suppose is for the best.

[Midschoolfool]

And relax.

[Midschoolfool]

Result. These cranks also use M8 stem bolts for the pinch, and they only need two. This means I can bundle up a full set and a ti axle and sell the red Primos.



Glorious.

[Midschoolfool]

OK here goes. I am having to resize and edit every pic now, and I am stupid busy. So updates will be less frequent but bigger when I can find a moment.

OK, so I will skip out the several hour fight with the cranks. I knew it would happen, because the axle is long. I could see that in the auction pics, so I knew I would have to fabricate a sprocket spacer for the bolt. And I was right. This meant putting them on and removing them about 20 times. I got them on around 8:30 last night and by then I was exhausted. But on they are. Sadly I did not have the spacers for 22mm I thought I had, so the non drive side needs to come off one more time when these arrive.



That said I was very relieved to get away with just buying that, and not another complete BB. So, after slicing my finger open last night on a star nut and bleeding all over the place I rested up and got back to it today.

It was finally time to bust out the Ti. First up, the stem.



As you can tell (because the fork would not be on the bike now if not) the star nut and top cap I bought arrived also.



Gorgeous. Obviously the Ti pinch bolts are in the crank arms now also. So, seat clamp Ti bolt.



There was one left over for the brake lever too, which was awesome.



And of course the 990 got two.



Then I made the cables for the dual pull. I am waiting for new cable cutters as you get one shot at this, or it's ruined.



They are coming Saturday. But we are close. Very close.







I have put the Standard away as I have two other bikes to work on.

[Midschoolfool]

Finally.



It's actually amazing how well it works tbh. Didn't get any more pics yet, as I started digging out stuff to get rid of.

[Midschoolfool]

OK so I ordered a decal for the seat post yesterday. The seat post is a DMR, not a Rod. Even though they are absolutely identical. Thing is? the Pork is a weird size any way, and I couldn't be arsed with shims or paying more than the tenner it cost me new. So this will work lovely.



Then a very strange thing happened. If you cast your mind back to the decal I redrew and sent off for printing?



The "NY 99" thing was bugging me. Basically the history of the fork is someone I know bought it new in 98. He then rode it til it broke, and put it away. When I say broke the welds gave out on the steerer. Any way, he took it down to Leroy Maidment last year and had it pro welded. At which point I stuffed it in my loft, and forgot about it until recently. I then restored it etc. But something about that decal just did not sit right with me. How could the fork be made before 99 and have that decal on? The fact is? it shouldn't. So it is probably for the best my mate hasn't done them yet.

What made me realise this was finding pics of two Kink Empire rev A from 97 and 98.





At which point not only did it dawn  on me that the fork I was trying to copy was a Rev B (there is no physical difference btw) but it was also wrong. They should not look like this.



At this point I looked in my stash. And guess what? sometimes things are just meant to be.



So with that done all that is now left to do is to put a sticker on the seat tube. And then file the gyro balls down as they are hitting each other (easy) and also take the seat off and reglue the top. As it is loose and saggy.







You can see there why the cranks were a ball ache. Worth it, though.

[Midschoolfool]

OK so the penultimate post on this. Next time you see this it will be finished.

When I replaced the seat clamp bolt for the Ti one I thought "Let's drop the seat just enough so the new decal fits". Thing is, it was clacking. At the time it had no front end on, and I was holding it up by hand. So I just did the bolt up and left it.

Last night I took it out to glue the seat cover back down (now done) and realised the post was seriously long. It was actually hitting the BB shell 

All I had was a Jr hack saw. 30 minutes later.. It snapped. FFS. By this time I was getting angry, so I snapped it off and finished it up by file. BASTUD.



And sorted.

[Midschoolfool]

OK so it is close to the finish line. I need to put a decal on the seat post, and fit the grips I got for it.



But that was it. Note I said was 

The Primo pedals are stupendously heavy. I noticed Superstar (who I have used many times before) had a sale on their new pedals but were chucking in gold Ti axles for ?76.



So yeah I might have bought those too 

[Mikku]

In for the bling!

[Midschoolfool]

Dude those Primos are heavy AF. Might put those on the Fat Boy.