Kona Kilauea 1994 Frame Rescue!

I thought it time to do something with this...

I bought it last year for the cost of postage as it had a crack right through the drive side drop out. I needed it as a commuter in the short term so a buddy of mine welded it up and I rode it till after Christmas in this incarnation:



Lockdown 3 began and I stripped the bike to assess its condition. All the main tubes are in good condition, with a tiny dent in the seat tube, and the paint really isn't salvageable. But that dropout.....





I had the frame dipped at the powder coaters up the road to reveal the dropout was now cracking around the repair:



So time to have some new dropouts brazed in. So here it is yesterday, currently in etch primer to provide some sort of protection while it goes to a frame-building friends workshop for the work to be done! He's also gonna put a cable stop on the top tube for me, so no nasty adapters if I want to run V's.





Watch this space.

Oooh- this is gonna be good

While the frames away I've been thinking of colour. I've decided to go dark blue, with 97 style decals. Not a Faithfull resto then, but thats fine. I get my favourite killy colour scheme with my preferred downtube gear cable routing! Now to source some decals....

whats the plan for rear brakes? looks like you've got bigger than 26 and disc at the front only for that temporary setup?

i posted a 94 fire mountain 700c conversion a few weeks back where i'd had the rear brake boss moved out an inch, while also replacing the fork and it came up pretty well.

also had the top tube cable stops added to make some cable routing a bit easier - those old brake cable collars just dont exist any more!

i stuck with cantilever brakes for that build, but i think next time i might have a good think about disc - theres a youtube video where 'old shovel' does that conversion so it is certainly doable.

and while my conversion was for a mates bike, i really quite like the 94 konas set up with drops, geometry is perfect for a gravel/commuter - whats your plan for the end setup?

Thats 26 front and rear

Thanks for your comment, i'm Gonna keep it mostly how kona intended. I'm having a v brake cable stop added while its getting repaired so I can at least stop properly!

I'm a fan of Old Shovels channel, although i'm sorry to say every Kona he's done i haven't liked. I'm also not a fan of his disc brake mounts (he never adds a proper brace). There's been a couple where he has stripped and repainted over very good original paint jobs which just isn't cricket. Just my opinion.

fair play, i took a good hard look at the fire mountain before modifying it - those 90's konas were pretty great as they were, but alas nudging 50 makes rough trail rides without suspension a sure recipe for not getting ridden - its back in my mates hands and he's put a hundred k on it already. disc brakes though - would make swapping back to 26 a _lot_ easier.




yes. that particular explosif i winced when he started peeling back the stickers with the knife, and the paint was like ... perfect? i guess if he had the disc brake in mind, he'd never match the paint so it all had to go.

looking forward to seeing the kilauea build proceed!

A Bit of progress...

Really coming together now. Just had another coat of etch primer and a couple of small dents filled. Light sand and then colour next, and I better order those decals...

looking good with the new dropouts. I would have had the eyelets removed too though.

I much prefer the Ritchey dropouts to the originals. I had the eyelets left on as i'm undecided... but I can always lop em' off quick enough in the future. They are quite big though aren't they!

I think its more that they sit proud of the dropout, instead of being part of it like the original ones, if that makes sense.