Saracen Kili Racer

Nice project, always fancied one of these. I was surprised when I read the 92 catalogue (its in the scans section somewhere) how many models of these e-stays they made, there was even a Campag version.

Not sure about colour, maybe a silver metallic?

ooh ade this looks a good'un

can i say the baby blue colour or a flouro aceeed scheme

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mike

Nice to see another one of these turn up. Your's looks to be a later 92 model with the side routed cables and Saracen embossed drop-outs.
The catalogue shows an early production version with the cables on top of the top tube and different drop-outs.
Mine is an early 1992 version which no doubt used up the remaining 1991 frames and has the same features shown in the catalogue.

The Kili Racer had a Tange tubeset, whereas all the higher specced versions of the steel e-stay Kili range had variations on True Temper tubes. Only the top two in the range had those segmented forks and also had True Temper OX Ultra II tubes.

As to potential colour choices, well the Kili Pro was black, the Kili Flyer was purple, the range topping Kili XTR was metallic silver and the very exclusive Campag equipped, and presumably very rare, Kili Ultra was a gorgeous cyan blue colour.

I've seen these re-done in white and blue too though and they do look very nice. It's up to you though.
I'd stick with the original forks though. The forks legs are well proportioned to the frame and the curve makes them nicely compliant and comfortable. Threaded headsets aren't that difficult are they?

Have a good time rebuilding it. They are a bit heavy but great fun to ride, so well worth it.

Thanks for all the replies, especially for that useful and interesting details drystonepaul. Very good to read.

Threaded headsets are ok, just faffing a bit I think? Maybe I'm wrong. Although my first bike (tufftrax/trekker) was a threaded headset, my first bike I bought myself and subsequently were ahead. Agree that those forks might look out of place.

Suppose I best buy some headset spanners.

Looks like you have an involving project there Coomber

I like the sound of brown, saw a metallic brown salsa that looked great, was the same colour a pint of bitter I recall corduroy boy doing a brown bike that looked the mutts nuts.

Personally I would go for a unique colour that really sets your your bike from the rest.

I would stick with the original forks as the old Saracen max drives arn't that bad.

My dad has exactly the same bike as this and he loves it.

No real progress. I have thankfully ditched the idea of the ahead forks. Moment of madness. Will stick with the originals for certain.

Have bought some DX cantis, DX on mavic front wheel and cheap STX rear wheel. This is going to get used so not overly concerned on period correctness until things break etc.

Here it is built up in mock mode with what I had in the shed including those wheels:

Discussing this bike with Hydorah, and how nice the detail is that the pierced top tube looks, he suggested getting a GT stem with similar style (the flip flop stem). So I am now the owner of this which I will powder coat with the frame and forks when I choose the colour!

nice stem fits it nicely. I like the 'jolly octopus' in the background as well!!

Is the fork steerer tube date stamped, mine is.
Not sure that brown would show the frame off quite as well as the blue would, looking forward to seeing the build progress.