Bike rebuild blog

dogboy73

Since buying a new bike recently (A Giant Trance X5), to replace my 9 year old Ellsworth Isis, I've been stripping down the Isis & flogging all the parts on e-bay. My intention was to sell everything that was okay to sell, including the frame. But once I'd got down to the frame I kind of realised that I really didn't want to sell it. It's been a great bike & I didn't think I'd get much for the frame anyway.

I started toying with the idea of building it back up again as a project bike. I wanted to learn more about bike maintenance & mechanics & so working on my old bike seemed like the ideal way to do this. I had the Trance to ride so it wasn't like I was in danger of screwing up my only bike. Anyway things have grown from here & I'm really enjoying the process of working on the bike. So much so I decided to start a blog to chart the projects progress. Check it out here;

http://isisreborn.blogspot.com/

dogboy73

Just deciding what colour to get the frame powder coated. I'm thinking white at the moment.

Has anyone on here had a frame shot blasted/peened powder coated? Did you bung up the BB & headtube holes with something? Do I need to do this?

Grimy

dogboy73 wrote:

Just deciding what colour to get the frame powder coated. I'm thinking white at the moment.

Has anyone on here had a frame shot blasted/peened powder coated? Did you bung up the BB & headtube holes with something? Do I need to do this?

I'd recomend it. powder coat is quite thick, so if you took it to a bike shop to have the BB thread run thru with a tap to clear the paint out, theres no guarentee they will start the thread in the same place and not cross thread it. Your best bet is to simply leave an old pair of BB bearing cups on the bike and the same with the head stock bearings. When its painted, lightly score the dividing edge with a scaple and then remove them to leave a perfect edge and a clean BB/head tube face.

Same goes for any other tapped holes on the bike such as the rear caliper holes and the bottle mounts etc. Get a couple of long bolts and run them into the holes a couple of turns, but not all the way down so the paint can get under the bolt head. This will keep the paint out the threads.

dot1

cool blog! its an interesting read and its good to see you getting your hands dirty! im amazed at the amount of people that spend ££££ on bikes and go riding all the time, yet the only thing they can fix on the bike is a puncture! I can and do every single bit of maintenance on my own bike, including installing headsets (albeit a slightly bodged way, lump of wood and a hammer) and wouldnt have it any other way! tinkering with bikes is half the fun of owning one! keep up the good work and keep us updated!

Anonymous

nice one!!

dogboy73

Grimy wrote:

dogboy73 wrote:

Has anyone on here had a frame shot blasted/peened powder coated? Did you bung up the BB & headtube holes with something? Do I need to do this?

I'd recomend it. powder coat is quite thick, so if you took it to a bike shop to have the BB thread run thru with a tap to clear the paint out, theres no guarentee they will start the thread in the same place and not cross thread it. Your best bet is to simply leave an old pair of BB bearing cups on the bike and the same with the head stock bearings.

Good tips, Grimy. Thanks for those. I don't have any old BB's or Headsets to use to bung up the holes. I will have to improvise

dogboy73

dot1 wrote:

cool blog! its an interesting read and its good to see you getting your hands dirty! im amazed at the amount of people that spend ££££ on bikes and go riding all the time, yet the only thing they can fix on the bike is a puncture! I can and do every single bit of maintenance on my own bike, including installing headsets (albeit a slightly bodged way, lump of wood and a hammer) and wouldnt have it any other way! tinkering with bikes is half the fun of owning one! keep up the good work and keep us updated!

My thinking exactly. I let my Isis go to pieces because I didn't want to keep taking it to a bike shop & paying out money & I couldn't be arsed learning to do things myself. When I bought it's repalcement (the Giant Trance X5) & started riding it I was thinking, 'my Isis used to be like this' i.e. Nice & smooth, with crisp gear changing, plush suspension, no creaks or noises from worn parts withh no lube on them!! That's when I started toying with the idea of rebuilding the Isis to make it great again. Don't get me wrong the Trance X5 is a great bike but the Isis was better & it will be again


http://isisreborn.blogspot.com/

dynamis_dk

Depends where you get it powdercoated as to how much care they take. I picked mine up this week and i left nothing in the frame and they have masked off all threads. Nothing needs to be re-tapped to clear the threads, only the BB and headset area needs to be faced to bring it back to flat metal.

If you like i'll get some photos next week to show the finish on the threads etc

dogboy73

dynamis_dk wrote:

Depends where you get it powdercoated as to how much care they take. I picked mine up this week and i left nothing in the frame and they have masked off all threads. Nothing needs to be re-tapped to clear the threads, only the BB and headset area needs to be faced to bring it back to flat metal.

I'll speak to the place I have in mind to see what they say. Hopefully they will take care & sort all this stuff out for me. This is the place I'm looking to take the frame;

http://www.ctc-powder-coating.co.uk/

dogboy73

Managed to get my swingarm pivot bearings extracted at the weekend. Right pain in the ars* to do ........ well, it seemed that way until I made up a nice little DIY tool for the job Very Happy Taking my frame in this weekend. The place (linked to above) apparently does a lot of bike frames so I'm quite confident things will turn out fine.

dogboy73

Got my bike back from the powder coaters on Saturday. Really pleased with the result. They have made a good job of it. Check out the pic on my blog.

dogboy73

The new pivot bearings have been fitted into the swingarm yokes, I've re-attched the swingarm to the front of the frame, added some decals & I've just bougt a Rock Shox Monarch 2.1 rear shock for the bike. It's coming along now. Next up is to re-fit the BB & then the headset. Then I'll probably buy some forks, a new headset & then some wheels. Next up will be the drive train & finally the disk brakes, seat post, grips & a saddle

dogboy73

New year, new drive to get this finished.

Went a bit quite after the second half of last year. I'm back on it now though