Kona Kilauea 1996 Restored

anhaslett

Retro Newbie
Firstly that you to the contributors and the site for inspiring me to do this!

So I finally after a couple of years thinking about it and a few secrets kept from wifey - finished the upgrade and restore of my beloved ex-racer, the Kona Kilauea 1996. It was never the best bike out there, but when I got it at 18 it was the best I could afford and it carried me some miles both racing and recreation.

So here are some pictures of the kona having a new breath of life. Some of the bits are original, some are modern, but all in all what I have now is a sweet trail bike that is in my mind as nice as anything that i could have bought new yet features a lovely columbus steel frame :)

The frame had a tiny crack on the rear brake posts - had been there for 10 years and never got worse, but I fancied a disk upgrade so I had Jeff from Kiwi Bikes in Rotorua, NZ do some work: http://www.kiwibikes.co.nz/

--The project two forks got a threadless steerer conversion
--Also disk mounts
--Rear disk mount also added
--Single speed Jeff asked - No!
--Also cable routing mounts added for the full length hydraulic cables

Following the frame work, off to Pro Coat in East Tamaki, Auckland, NZ (http://www.procoat.co.nz) for I think three coats of powder. White, then the stickers added. Then pearl over the top, then finally clear. Yes, you can powder coat over stickers! Result is exactly what I had hoped, white pearl with clear coat. Never dreamed this could be done with powder but hey!

Hope it inspires a few more to do the "re-do" rather than the "buy new".

Happy trails!

Ainsley

All the pics are here: https://skydrive.live.com/#cid=E0DE7EAD2A3F3EAE&id=E0DE7EAD2A3F3EAE!3842
 

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Midorimage":2o4kkafj said:
Looking nice... do you have any before pictures?? I'd like to see what you started with.

Good point - i do have this one from maybe two years ago when i put cruiser tires on it for commuting...
 

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Nice bike :)

Can i ask where you got the Kona chainstay protectors from?
 
Nice bike; you could put it in a showroom and the average punter would never know it's getting on for 20 years old! :cool:
 
I tend to agree with your photo caption, where it says "Front and rear risks and new cable routing added"!

The rear risk should be ok as the restorer has added a brace, but I would think the P2 was certainly a risk. When Kona modified the design for a disc tab, they made it a much more heavy duty fork. I'm not sure they ever had a butted version for discs, certainly not for the years I am aware of. Your P2 is quite thin metal down near the dropouts and it will have been weakened further by the new welding/brazing. I wouldn't use it. Why not fit a nice 80mm suspension fork to go with your nice bar/stem combo? There are SIDs around in white.

I don't think you can have a pearlescent finish over the decals. The pearlescent element is surely granules in the top powder coat - normally powder is applied in one coat only, so perhaps multiple coats is the way to achieve this finish? Then they might have done a clear coat over the decals. The decals look quite good incidentally, did you have them made specially?
 
wow, that's amazing! great kiwi fabrication and technical skills there with the frame work and painting also. congrats
 
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