i bought this POS klein fervor

I bought this POS klein Fervor frame and the two not-working manitou forks you see here from the local bike co-op at some point in time (wheels not included). Serial number identifies it as a 93 rascal so we're gona' build it up with some 1993 7-speed lx stuff.
Naw i'm gona' use whatever spare crap i have... some of it just happens to be 93 deore-lx stuff.
The plan is to find meaning in life by wasting time rebuilding an old fork and a wasted frame. Also... people might *think i'm cool if i have a klein.
Maybe i'll actually become cool... for real?
i gotta... uhh...
fix that manitou magnum...
...get the crown off that beyond-repair manitou-2 and put it on the magnum (to keep the steerer)
...drill out the derailleur hanger threads and stick a dropout saver in there
...rob my karakoram of some period-ish lx components for the klein
...find a pinch bolt for the stem
and finally, i'll probably forget about it.



fork is apart and i've found some elastomers for the compression stack, but i still need 2nd and 3rd (bottom and top out bumpers) stage elastos. I'm using bumpers from a judy to handle one of those jobs, but a urethane or rubber cylinder with a hole in it continues to elude me. I saw one user made some top out bumpers from cut-up inner tubes. I do have lots of cut up inner tubes...


The elastomer kit i'm using is for the 1998 pro/pro-lt/spyder R. The original elastomers for the magnum, m3, and m4 were those little red/yellow/blues and they're about an inch long. Six of those went in each leg. It looks like one long spyder elasto is around two of the original elastos, so three should make up the stack nicely. The kit even has a short coil i'd like to use if i can manage to cram that in there instead of one elastomer.
I believe the mcu's from the sx series of forks were similar if not the same and would probably work in these forks too. Lots of stuff probably works in these. I might have used a quadra elasto but the manipoo stuff was made available before that happened.

If its a 93 model and well before the Trek take over why is it a P.O.S

In any other world (other than a klien one) a paint job wouldn't make that much of a difference to the price tag.

The forks will rebuild fine, although the refresh elastomers I got from Suspension fork parts for mine weren't all that.

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most of the bikes i have are a little rough- paint chips, damaged components, and no chance of being worth what i put into them, so i call them all POS's eh?

This one has a couple paint chips, a pretty roughed up chainstay, and the derailleur hanger was stripped and cracked.

For the rebuild i'm using NOS answer elastomers for the pro/sx forks and they're great (at the time of this posting, quite a few kits were available on bikerecyclery in the states). For the top out and bottom out bumpers though i've had a bit of a challenge finding something that will work. I was going to go with the suspensionforkparts 2nd and 3rd stage but i got a bit of sticker shock and can't bring myself to do it. Instead, i'll be using bumpers salvaged from 2 judy forks to handle the 3rd stage/rebound duty, and some 60a tubing bought from amazon will serve as the bottom out bumpers. I got a couple pro tips that a cut up flip flop would work but i don't want it to be that much POS.

Just waiting on that 60a polyurethane tube to get here then it'll be all ready to put together.

Some parts i'll slap on there... pretty lame parts, but here's a list anyways.

Deore-II (mt-62) derailleurs- 1989 vintage, a little older than the bike, but they look really nice on there (and that's what i had for spares).
LX shifter/brake lever units- 7-speed from a 1993 karakoram... sort of the original stuff, ish.
lx m563 crankset- i think that's the right crank for a 94 fervor...
deore-II pedals
zoom "original" cro-mo stem paired to some black answer taperLite bars. The stem seems nice enough, but i'd rather have an a-tac stem to pair with the bars.
seatpost won't be anything fancy, but i do have a vetta TT saddle that's the same as what came on the bike.
wheels will be matrix singletrack pro's with m560 hubs. Tires might end up being some newer maxxis things. I have some more retro IRC mythos xc's, but they're missing some lugs and every time the tires rolls around it makes that awful screeching sound that freaks out anyone within audible range.

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progressed a bit in the last few weeks.... here's what i went with for the compression stack- 2 spyder/sx elastomers and a coil spring. For the top out bumper i used the top out bumpers from a couple salvaged judy forks. For the bottom out bumper i used sections of 60a polyurethane "hollow round rod" (via amazon). The 60 a rod seemed nice and squishy and i've seen some people liken it to the yellow (firm) manitou elastomers but i'm not sure how it would work serving as the main compression stack. It's not pictures, but i believe i cut about 1-1/2" segments of the rod to make bumpers... something that resulted in around 2" of free compression shaft for travel.

and here we go; the almost finished piece.


some nice taperlite bars and a nice a-tac stem for the cockpit. Just needs a retro rad seatpost and i guess some retro rad bottle cages or something.

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That came out rather nice, only thing I'd change are those grips :shock:

Given what you've done I'm surprises by the lack of responses I reckon you've managed to land in the grey area.

Kleiin owners have their fingers in their ears, eyes closed and shouting "lal lal lal Lah" at the top of their voices in an attempt to deny reality that minus an over veneered exterior / make up removed... It's a bit of a plain Jayne who should never have been allowed out of the factory.


And to the rest of the world its still a Klien


Shame, as it looks like you have a nice ride there.

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That's turned out pretty good!
I'm actually quite surprised, when someone says "I'm going to rebuild this klein with crap I have laying about" you know that anything could happen, mostly bad things though.
You've pulled it off however, your motley collection of parts seems to suit the frame well. So did you find any meaning in life through renovating an old bike??

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no responses necessary eh mostly just something to look at, and if anyone has questions about rebuilding their old manitou i might be able to help.
These were my best spare parts, and admittedly i did have to buy a couple new things... the stem was traded for, the grips are new (and the hot pink is here to stay), a front derailleur to match the crank was needed, that rear cable roller was necessary to shorten the loop back there, and i had to find a klein anti-chainsuck device of course... to keep with the klein-dom.
The frame and ride are spot on for me... i look forward to having a great retroride until the rear derailleur tears out of the frame.

...this is like basket-case-bike number 11 for me and i'm still pretty convinced the meaning of life is eat food and stay alive, but that could just be the bikes aren't very enlightening.