1990 Marin Bear Valley Before and After

So, back in august I bought this off the bay for £40 with the intention of a full rebuild for the wife. Unfortunately the condition was terrible and most of the parts were junk. I half expected this but it was perhaps, even worse, than I expected. The camera flatters somewhat.

But, it was the right size, the frameset was rusted but straight and otherwise undamaged and I had a suitable donor bike for the main parts so I decided to press on.

The strip down was hard. The BB and headset were very tough to remove. I don't think I would have achieved it without Plusgas. The stem was rusted solid into the steerer and took some patience not to wrench the thing and damage something.

I decided the Zolatone had to bite the dust. I'm not a fan of un-necessary refinishes but this had to go, the frame would have continued to rust otherwise, and it wasn't pretty. I've been waiting to try my local powder coater for a while so I dropped the frame, fork, bars and stem with them for a blast and a touch of plain black satin (the wife's choice).

...to be continued after lunch

I looked at bottom picture and thought that was the after :facepalm:

That was a pretty sad looking bike

Looking forward to seeing this, I have been bitten by the Marin bug.

So about a week later, I went to pick up the parts. They charged me £25 all in so I was pretty pleased with the price. The job is okay, not perfect but not terrible and fine for a bike that will be ridden. They managed to mask off 95% of the areas that shouldn't be coated so there wasn't much work for me to do before re-assembly.

The donor bike was a 1991 Diamond Back Ascent EX (frameset available for karma if you're interested). Not a bad bike but not what she wanted, the wrong size and would have needed some parts too. It had lots of M550 Deore LX so that's an upgrade. Syncros post and Sun wheels were from ebay and were bargains for top quality parts, sorry to anyone I outbid. The only original parts I managed to salvage were the frameset, stem, bars, cranks (now on my '90 Palisades rat as the M730 were too good for it) and thankfully brakes - the original U works really well on the back even though it took several goes to get it working properly, lubrication is the key .

Full spec and pictures below. Let me know how you think it turned out, the Mrs is stoked.

Frame: 1990 Marin Bear Valley 15.5" (I tried to convince her to have decals but she said no :evil: )

Fork: Marin Cro-mo

Headset: Shimano 105 1" threaded JIS (the best I could find in JIS)
Stem: Marin steel roller
Handlebar: Marin steel
Grips: Onza Porcipaw re-issue
Barends: No

Brakes: Shimano BR-M454 front canti, BR-M453 rear U brake (took some figuring out!)
Brake Pads: Jagwire
Brake Cables: Clarks pre-lube, braided outers
Cantilever cable hangers: From racer x
Brake Levers: Shimano Deore XT ST-M095

Shifters: Shimano Deore XT ST-M095
Front Derailleur: Shimano Deore LX FD-M550
Rear Derailleur: Shimano Deore LX RD-M550
Derailleur Cables: Clarks pre-lube, braided outers
Cassette: Shimano 7 speed HG50, 13-30T in black
Chain: Shimano HG
Cranks: Shimano Deore LX FC-M550
Crank Bolts: Steel
Chainrings: Granny Shimano SG-24, Middle Stronglight 36, Big Shimano SG-46
Chainring bolts: Steel, chrome plated
Bottom Bracket: UN-55 new
Pedals: DMR V12 Greaseport, new

Hub Skewers: Shimano that I had in parts bin, period incorrect but look good
Rims: Sun Levanter grey ano (almost NOS)
Hubs: Shimano M550, silver
Nipples: Brass?
Spokes: Stainless
Tyres: Schwalbe Marathon, new
Tubes: Conti MTB, new

Saddle: Selle Italia lady gel flow
Seatpost: Syncros, used but lovely
Seatpost Binder: Ti bolt

Weight: 28.2 lbs

Well done

Nice one bud.. Another Marin saved.

Good to see a few Marins pop up today. Nice job

That is superb.

I have just shown this thread to my wife, as the 90/91 Bear Valley is her dream bike (she had one BITD and has a replacement in the garage), she said "Now THAT is what you call a restoration" high praise indeed.

Nice Good to see another one will live on ...

WD

looks great ! I've got an 89 I picked up a couple of weeks ago 90% original.
The Bear Valley was my first MTB, I think 89 -91 was its best years!

Congrats for saving another decent bike for the future