Hatty's Hardrock

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Fork [sic]

I wanted something that could run v-brakes and would actually work reasonably well (as the frame has V's on the back and I'm looking to keep down costs - he says having had NOS rims shipped from Germany :facepalm: ). I spent a long time looking through the bay and everywhere I could find, to try and get some at a good price - eventually I stumbled across these Rockshox Duke b*stards on a Facebook group for £50. They even had u-turn and new seals :facepalm:. Bit of a pain to pick them up (seller preferred collection - so had a two hour drive... to Coventry. Exactly)

So in hindsight (and with a bit more experience of something more modern than a Pace RC36 now) I probably should have asked a few more questions (although he was a v. nice guy, to be fair)... anyway, they seemed to go up and down (if with a bit of a scrape) and in not bad shape. In fairness, they're a hell of a lot lighter than the Suntours that were on there before - they weighed in at about 2.3Kg and these are around 1.6Kg

Have a look at the pic, and see if you can spot how nice and high they look for a 110mm travel fork :facepalm:

One evening (while code was compiling!) I did the initial strip down - first time inside modern forks - and found that the scraping noises seemed to relate to the utter lack of any kind of lubrication; actually - I tell a lie, there was at least 5ml in each leg. And lots of grey, gritty gunk. Two pics below show the damper and the u-turn spring as they came out (note all the crap around the damper) and following initial cleaning

Happy boy ordered lots of new Rockshox oil and Judy butter. Happy boy was living in his own naive happy world ... (to be continued)
 

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First off - painting. easy enough - good de-grease and rub down with wire wool, then some Rustoleum black gloss (apparently the advice from Rustoleum is to leave the original paint in place as the base coat). I picked this brand after quite a bit of research online and worked out quite well. I was so impressed I even sprayed my feet black (the perils of spray cans in the garage in bare feet!)

Took a while to dry properly - but seems good now it has, and very impressed with the finish (especially as it's me). Finally ordered some proper RockShox decals off Gil the other day (after weeks of indecision) and they should be arriving in the next few days. Yay.

Shame about the internals... did I mention the internals? Argh.

However - quick trial of the fork uppers on the bike looked niiiice.
 

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Re:

So... damper internals. Having cleaned up the damper internals I thought that all was well - however, I noticed that Rockshox do a soft spring for the Duke (which would have been much more suitable for my daughter's weight) and I also noticed that the damper had an allen key hole in the bottom and a slot in the top - to allow for adjustable rebound. Super. I thought.

So - extremely long story short (long = number of weeks of screaming, crying, gnashing of teeth, pleading to the god of MTB [Mint Sauce - in my book], accepting defeat and acknowledging that the bike would never be finished - etc, etc): the rebound damper absolutely would not budge. I tried soaking in various solutions, progressively larger allen keys (because the hole to accept the adjuster was rounded out), stud extractor in the top and large spanner, and nothing. The bugger just would not budge.

There was absolutely nothing available on the web or local bike / suspension shops for 30mm upper Rockshox of that era (beward buying Psylo's or u-turn Dukes of circa 2005, is all I can say). Same for the u-turn spring - struggled to even find a medium (red) let alone a soft (yellow). One yellow spring in the states - for £40 + £20 postage :facepalm:

Eventually (after a few weeks) I took a wing on Amazon on some XC30 internals as they supposedly have 30mm uppers and an x-soft spring. Obviously they have different 30mm uppers (have these available on eBay if anyone needs some!)

So - back to trying to fix mine. Eventually I managed to drive the adjustable part of the rebound damper out using a stud extractor in the top (clamped in a vice), an adjustable spanner on the flange on the metal outer tube and a wooden mallet (see pic below). This done - the job became easy - I drilled out the rebound adjuster hole and used some epoxy to fit a 2.5mm allen bolt (proper size for the adjuster) in place (see pic) - then cleaned up the hole where the end stop had been fitted in the slot (by extending the slot) and drilled a new hole for that with a pin vice (lonely teenage years and too much D&D :D ). Lightly rubbed down the adjustment tube then lubed, replaced the o-rings and everything went back together neatly - as you can see in the pics.

I gave up on finding a soft fork and decided to fit one should I ever find it. All that lot done... (and this is the bloody short version, bear in mind! :D) I could re-assemble. Rebound adjuster worked perfectly (v. happy).

Final piece of the puzzle was the u-turn adjuster (that sits outside the fork, on top of the spring and allows you to adjust between 63-110mm travel) - which was also rounded out and equally impossible to obtain and odd sized. Solution for that was to wax the bolt it sits on, wax a strip of latex glove (that I placed over the bolt) - fill the hole in the adjuster with epoxy, and place it on top of the waxed glove (essentially using the bolt as a mould) - few hours later, everything came off easily and the adjuster worked a treat!

Proper decals arrived in the post from Gil today so I'll be fitting them later - beautiful quality, as you'd expect.

So, forks saved, and nice and plush again now - thank feck for that!
 

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Nearly the last historical update, then we're back to 'where I am now'. Few nice parts that I manged to find for really good money (about time! :D )

First off, lovely XT hollowtech crank and BB - which fits the black/purple theme perfectly. Came off the bay for just over 20 quid (for both)! Admittedly the drive side pedal thread was stripped - but that was easy enough to sort.

Next - nice set of XT v-brakes, that I bought from this lovely site for just under £30 (for both ends). Absolutely perfect condition as well!

Finally, and as a sort of father's day thing (as I didn't get to see my kids), I decided to 'donate' my NOS porcipaws. Always loved these grips and I was saving them up for when the ones on the Zaskar finally die - but they'll look good on this.

Last pic is with forks and brakes fitted - starting to come together!
 

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Few 'bring us bang up to date' pics. Found a nice Kona stem on eBay - I wouldn't normally be keen on the square section but I think it fits the front of the frame nicely.

Also found some nice purple titanium skewers (on a budget, remember? :facepalm: were only a tenner though, so it might be rubber titanium) - slightly different shade of purple to the wheels, but I'm pretending not to notice for now.

Received a v. nice cassette and rear mech from our very own LGF, yesterday (huge thanks for that) - very happy that it fits the freehub so I can now measure and order spokes for the rear wheel.

Wheel building is in progress - quick shot of laced (with a few mistakes I noticed a bit later) and ready for truing. Really happy with them though - black/purple is gorgeous (in my eyes, anyway!).

And finally... received some really lovely Rockshox decals from Gil to finish of the forks nicely - and these beautiful head badges. Skeleton Jack - who else? Going to be a happy daughter I reckon! can't say how happy I am about those :)
 

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