Guidelines regarding when to rebuild and when it's time to stop

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Guidelines regarding when to rebuild and when it's time to stop
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flag Mpawson
Posted: Mar 6, 2017 at 18:41 Quote
Hi, just joined. Long thread sorry Eek

Just read Andrew's Every Expense Shared thread and I am probably going the other way, ie Spare No Expense.
Problem is it's a bit like an addiction and kind of fun, but today I found myself looking at how much replacing the suspension front forks would be on a 2004 Ironhorse which was purchased at Sportchek 13 years ago for $800.
Since taking an all weekend bike repair course at the University last Sept. I have become rather obsessed, taking apart three of our older bikes, one being my 2006 Giant Boulder SE and putting about $500 into it with new BB, new crankset and drive, new cassette, pedals, brake cables pads, back wheel, new tires and chain and tuning up the gears as well as cleaning and regreasing all hubs. Course this is my main commuter and back country fire road riding bike so I really went to town.
But now I am looking at this Ironhorse MTB which my first two sons treated with disrespect, cause it was never built to take jumps on MTB bike courses, and wondering how far I should go to fix it so it can be ridden on the trails again. And by that I mean the numerous fire roads and hiking trails that bikes are allowed on here in the Alberta Rockies. I am not trying to fix it to jump off wee cliffs while barreling down Moose Mtn. I am already wondering, after thoroughly cleaning it including regreasing all hubs and headset, and building my first wheel, replacing the disk brake pads, if I should repaint it. So today when I found myself learning about forks and realizing there is no way this bike is worth any fork more expensive than $150, I realized that I do not know what is the limiting factor to resurrecting a bike? Is it the frame itself? If so how do you judge what the quality of the frame is? Doing this rebuilt so far I have learned that it has come with low end disk brakes, headset and the forks feel like a boat anchor so I am betting that is low end. All this makes me wonder what the hell was Sportchek charging $800 for in 2004?
Did we just get incredibly ripped off or is there some value in this bike that makes it worth further resurrection?
flag Mpawson
Posted: May 1, 2017 at 11:59 Quote
So I will answer my own thread with “I am not sure except if you have to replace the forks and you want something good then you should probably think twice.” First of all finding a decent fork for an older MTB that has a straight steerer tube and is also within the limits of the travel your existing bike was designed for is difficult. Otherwise the cheaper options for $200 or less are replacing the same boat anchor weight – in my case 5lbs. Other than that my research indicated the Ironhorse Warrior was built with a pretty good frame. What exactly that means I could use some input on. What is the sign of a good quality aluminum frame that makes it worth to rebuild your bike?

All that aside below is the completed project. A completely new paint job using quality Autobody paints from Calgary Body Shop and Supplies. The cool thing is they will give you a color book to choose from and then pump your custom color choice into spray cans. This allows you to buy a high quality autobody paint and not be limited to commercial Rustoleum spray can colors. It also means no need to rent a professional spray gun. However, if you have one of those then they can offer the House of Kolor line. These they cannot pump into a spray can.
http://www.houseofkolor.com/kolors/?ref=topnav.

But before you do it yourself if you really want a professional job then find someone like this company in your neighborhood http://www.toxikdesignlab.com/
I would like to make a shout out to Harald Strasser who gave me some email tips. I had found out about this shop while on holiday in Vancouver and if I had to do this again would seriously consider shipping my frame to him.

For those of you who like to price compare, in total (Paint, filler, primer, more paint, stripper, sandpaper, touch up paint, Clearcoat ) cost me grand total of Cdn $222.71. Admittedly I made $64 in mistakes, so next time lessons learned would have made that $160. Compare that though to Toxik’s rate of $250 for a base color and you don’t have to sand, prime, improvise a paint shack. I should update this post in a year or two to let you know how well my paint job has stood the test of time. Valspar paints at $25 – 30 a spray can better last longer than off the shelf rattle can paint. But Toxik uses Sherwin Williams Aircraft paint. I tried finding this paint with no luck in Calgary and Harald mentioned he doubted if you could buy it cheaper than Toxik would paint your bike.

All that being said, I have to admit I could have spent that $222 on other parts for the bike. The Hayes MX2 disc brakes were fine so I just replaced the pads. But for the price of the paint job I could have replaced them with Avid BB7 from MEC.https://www.mec.ca/en/product/5032-396/BB7-Mountain-Mechanical-Disc-Brake?org_text=avid

So, live and learn. The bike rides quite well but I have slight rub on my front derailleur in the high gear which I am wondering despite replacing all cables and housing and tuning it up means it should be replaced. Another cost that I could have taken out of the paint job. But I must admit, I had a lot of fun painting this bike. All in all other than paint I replaced Pedals, Bottom Bracket, Cassette, Tires and Tubes, rebuilt the back wheel, Disc brake pads, Cables and Housing, swapped out the 44T Chainring, changed the handle bar grips, cleaned and regreased all hubs + bearings and had my local bike shop do a chase and face on all threads. Total cost for that $362.65

So grand total $585.36 to fix a 2004 Ironhorse Warrior that looked like crap and was in unworkable condition two months ago. Interesting hobby. Got to wait for next winter before I do another.

Ironhorse frame
  Ironhorse frame

Ironhorse Frame sanded
  Ironhorse Frame sanded

Final paint job with clearcoat
  Final paint job with clearcoat

Ironhorse Emblem
  Ironhorse Emblem

Finished bike
  Finished bike
flag cmcrawfo
Posted: May 14, 2017 at 10:43 Quote
Love the build. Nice story to go with it.

Rebuilding old bikes is a great hobby, and it really sets you up with the skills and knowledge to be able to take on more significant projects. I have done up a few over the years, most wind up at the family cabin so we can go fro cruises down the forest service roads.

as far as your front mech goes ... if it's set up properly, and you are not describing a cross shift, then you can just bend out the cage of the front mech slightly with a screwdriver, to allow for that extra mm of clearance you need.
flag jimmythegeek
Posted: Aug 4, 2017 at 8:02 Quote
I feel your pain re:suspension forks with a straight steerer. I've been working on a single speed build with a 2004 Kona Explosif frame. Harvesting parts from my 2013 Kula has helped offset costs but I'm always looking for ways of having 2 MTBs again as opposed to 1.5. A couple things to consider for your future suspension hunting needs:

1. Almost nothing new will work for you any more and the cost is prohibitive anyway. Manitou still makes some but they are on the weighty side. That being said, suspension tech has come a long way in 13 years and while it is heavy it's probably buttery smooth compared to what's on the bike now (it looks like you have a Manitou of some sort on there now).

2. Used, straight steerer forks for 26" wheels are hard to come by but are often (relatively) cheap. I've seen SIDs on here for $350. Not cheap per se but better than the $1000 price tag on a new one.

3. As for travel you have some wiggle room. My Explosif would have come with an 80mm fork but was designed to accommodate 100mm as well. The front end sits a tad high but it's far from choppered out. This will affect the handling of the bike a bit but I haven't noticed a huge difference. If it does affect the handling in ways you don't like you can shorten the travel on some forks. Rock Shox had kits to do older SIDs and I assume they would work for other forks. A friend shortened his from 100mm to 90mm to suit his older Litespeed Tanasi going and it rides beautifully.

In any case your build looks like it turned out really nicely. I love the paint job!
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