Author Topic: P.O.S. Racer Build (Read 7373 times)

renegaderacer · « **on:** January 17, 2018, 09:48 PM »

After a few years out of the game, I'm back with my first racer build! People with long memories may remember my red and blue colour-coded Falcon Pro Aero Flyer or the Ace racing T.I.T.S build?

I've been itching to do a build for some time but needed to justify it to the missus when I thought 'why don't I build my nephew his first bmx?'. As the missus will do anything for him, it was the easiest green light I've ever had!

If you've seen my other builds you'll notice I tend not to build the bikes most people would choose so I scoured the Bay and came up with this little beauty, a Hawk Scorcher XL. I don't know much about these apart from they were sold in Woolworths in the early 80's for about 80 quid. All the ones on the Museum seem a bit older than this so I'm thinking this may be around '85 although I'll never really know as they didn't feel it good enough to stamp a serial number on!

renegaderacer · « **Reply #1 on:** January 17, 2018, 09:58 PM »

Here are a few more pics of loveliness.....
It is the cheapest thing I've ever seen and was clearly welded at 4.59pm on a Friday! It does have some 'names' on it though.
* Acorn Magnum wheels
* Thun cranks
* San Marco seat
Mostly, it's rubbish though.

renegaderacer · « **Reply #2 on:** January 17, 2018, 10:03 PM »

I stripped it all down which all went well despite the rust until I got to the stem which was the biggest bugger to shift ever and I had to eventually drill it out. I thought I'd be able to save the chrome so I started to clean it up...

Mikku · « **Reply #3 on:** January 17, 2018, 10:07 PM »

Proper Old School that!! Looks like a fun project, and a green light from the Mrs always helps!

renegaderacer · « **Reply #4 on:** January 17, 2018, 10:13 PM »

I now needed a new stem so got a tidy SR off eBay nice and cheap and polished it up. This is going to be a rider and not a show pony so I left the odd scratch on the stem as it's going to far more of them when it's ridden. I also polished up the seat clamp which came with the bike.
I then bought three piece cranks as I always like to try and prove that you can polish a turd! I couldn't afford the fancy high end build cranks so I got some cheap SR Royal road bike arms and polished them up and then bought and polished a Sugino Mighty Competition chainring and got a YST bottom bracket.

renegaderacer · « **Reply #5 on:** January 17, 2018, 10:16 PM »

Quote from: Mikku on January 17, 2018, 10:07 PM

Proper Old School that!! Looks like a fun project, and a green light from the Mrs always helps!

Cheers, it has certainly made my life a lot easier, especially with Christmas falling bang in the middle of it!

renegaderacer · « **Reply #6 on:** January 17, 2018, 10:27 PM »

I was after a set of wheels and originally I wanted to go red so was looking at Night Burner wheels and the like but everything seemed too much to me, then I saw the perfect set. Well, ok, they were blue but they were different, they were English like the bike and they carried my surname, so I had to have them! I got myself a nice set of Spencer rimmed wheels. When they came, the chrome in the middle of the hubs was badly pitted and as I stripped the wheels to rebuild them, the rear hub literally fell apart and neither were anywhere near round. I had already shiney sided the rims and decided to build them up anyway as I needed the practice having never built wheels before.

renegaderacer · « **Reply #7 on:** January 17, 2018, 10:31 PM »

As the bike is a rider I got repop Comp 3 tyres and MKS pedals to complement.

renegaderacer · « **Reply #8 on:** January 17, 2018, 10:36 PM »

For the handlebars, I wanted something old school racer style but without the cost and saw these bars off a Raleigh Grifter XL which looked the part and were only about £15. What I didn't realise until I got them was that they're actually Nitto bars so that's even better. The brakes were again a cheap set of Raleigh Night Burner items I stripped and polished.

renegaderacer · « **Reply #9 on:** January 17, 2018, 10:44 PM »

I found a set of hubs of similar size to mine, both NOS and stamped 1984 and with 10mm axles. The front is Shimano and the rear is Malliard or however you spell it. I polished them up and re-laced the wheels. There's actually something very calming with lacing wheels but far less with truing them up!

renegaderacer · « **Reply #10 on:** January 17, 2018, 10:48 PM »

A couple more wheel pics.....

renegaderacer · « **Reply #11 on:** January 17, 2018, 10:58 PM »

By this stage I had given up on the idea of keeping the bike chrome as it was just too far gone. I contacted Dan and after sending him pics of the mess he said he could rescue it, so it was shipped off to him asap. When he sent me pictures of how it came out it looked great but that was nothing compared to how it looked in the flesh when I unwrapped it! I had it powdered Ripper blue and I think it looks the business. Dan did an amazing job to fix all the dents and pitting before he powdered it.
Del came through and did a great job as usual replicating the original decals too.

renegaderacer · « **Reply #12 on:** January 17, 2018, 11:05 PM »

The finishing touch was a custom set of pads in blue from Steve and they look amazing on the bike and really finish it off. I've got a race plate for it with my motorcycle racing number on it which I want to fit at some time but when I put the pads on I couldn't bring myself to cover them up with the plate!

renegaderacer · « **Reply #13 on:** January 17, 2018, 11:08 PM »

Some more pics.......

CustardLips · « **Reply #14 on:** January 17, 2018, 11:10 PM »

That's a lovely POS.

hotdog · « **Reply #15 on:** January 17, 2018, 11:20 PM »

Yeah,you've done a really good resto there. Your nephew will be well made up. Just make sure you get him a lock for it.

kalex · « **Reply #16 on:** January 17, 2018, 11:26 PM »

You've done a cracking job and good choice of blue as it makes the decals stand out.

It now looks to good to use lol

renegaderacer · « **Reply #17 on:** January 17, 2018, 11:33 PM »

So there you have it, a complete build thread in one hit!

There are a few more things I forgot to mention like the NOS AME mini grips (he only has little hands!), the 1984 Diamondback Viper seat clamp I stripped and polished and the white Dia Compe brake blocks to name a few. Oh yeh, I found out it takes an ISO sized headset instead of a normal BMX one which of course I only found out once I'd bought the wrong one!

Here's a quick run down of the pats I can remember:

* 1984/5 ish Hawk Scorcher XL frame and forks, powdercoated PK Ripper baby blue by SBD
* Spencer rims, shiney sided and laced to polished NOS 1984 Shimano front and Maillard rear hubs
* SR Royal crank arms, polished with polished Sugino Mighty Competition 44t chainring and YST bb
* Repop MKS pedals
* Repop Tioga Comp 3 tyres 2.15 fr, 1.75 r
* Original Suntour 16t freewheel cleaned up
* Izumu chain
* Tange Seiki ISO sealed headset
* Raleigh Grifter XL Nitto handlebars
* NOS AME mini grips
* Raleigh Night Burner brake levers and calipers stripped and polished
* Dia Compe brake cables
* Dia Compe white brake blocks
* SR stem, polished
* Layback seatpost swapped for straight one as he's not that tall!
* Original San Marco saddle cleaned up
* 1984 Diamondback Viper seat clamp, stripped and polished
* Replica decals by Del
* Custom pads by Steve
* NOS Landar plate with NOS Falcon Pro numbers and a mixture of NOS and repop decals

MASSIVE thanks to Dan, Del and Steve, without whom, none of this would've been possible!

Being a freestyle man at heart I have to say I really enjoyed this POS racer build and have clearly spent way too much time, effort and money on this bike but when I hand it over to my nephew and see the look on his face; it'll all be worth it!

Hope you enjoyed the build and I'm sure there'll be more to come now.

Cheers,

Giles

renegaderacer · « **Reply #18 on:** January 17, 2018, 11:35 PM »

Quote from: CustardLips on January 17, 2018, 11:10 PM

That's a lovely POS.

Quote from: kalex on January 17, 2018, 11:26 PM

You've done a cracking job and good choice of blue as it makes the decals stand out.

It now looks to good to use lol

Quote from: hotdog on January 17, 2018, 11:20 PM

Yeah,you've done a really good resto there. Your nephew will be well made up. Just make sure you get him a lock for it.

Cheers guys!

In2bmx · « **Reply #19 on:** January 18, 2018, 08:18 AM »

Very Nice

Love that Blue

renegaderacer · « **Reply #20 on:** January 18, 2018, 08:32 AM »

Quote from: in2bmx on January 18, 2018, 08:18 AM

Very Nice

Love that Blue

Thanks. Yeh, Dan really nailed it with that paintjob!

thebigdog · « **Reply #21 on:** January 18, 2018, 08:47 AM »

Cracking coulor mate, really like that

Mikku · « **Reply #22 on:** January 18, 2018, 08:50 AM »

Bloodyhell that was quick! Didn’t realise when I first posted that you’d be done and dusted in a day!!

Bike looks great. That frame colour is always a winner, and the Grifter/Nitto bars were a real find, but the effort that you put in is reflected in the result - top turd-polishing skills!!

If your nephew doesn’t appreciate that then disown the little blighter!!

renegaderacer · « **Reply #23 on:** January 18, 2018, 08:56 AM »

Quote from: thebigdog on January 18, 2018, 08:47 AM

Cracking coulor mate, really like that

Thanks mate

Quote from: Mikku on January 18, 2018, 08:50 AM

Bloodyhell that was quick! Didn’t realise when I first posted that you’d be done and dusted in a day!!

Bike looks great. That frame colour is always a winner, and the Grifter/Nitto bars were a real find, but the effort that you put in is reflected in the result - top turd-polishing skills!! If your nephew doesn’t appreciate that then disown the little blighter!!

Thanks for the complement and glad you like it. When I started off I thought it would be more of a decent clean up job of what was already there but one thing led to another and well, you know how it goes!

mivvi · « **Reply #24 on:** January 18, 2018, 09:32 AM »

Fantastic job, what a transformation! Great to see the lower end bikes being saved. Get a bit bored of seeing the same old high end bikes, same colour schemes etc. (People spending more on bikes than I spend on a car!) Restoration is where my heart is but that's just me, i'm always restoring something. Good work, bet you're well chuffed on how it turned out

Author Topic: P.O.S. Racer Build (Read 7373 times)

In2bmx