Armageddon days are here (again!!)

albystarvation

Dirt Disciple
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=lel0PzhU6Pk

Let me introduce myself, before getting to the point of this thread.
I'm 49, a mountain biker since 1996.
In 2000, after 4 years of cross country, I tackled with downhill, getting more and more entrapped in the gravity aspects of this sport.

In 2004 I married my beloved Paola, and stopped DH'ing, but continued biking off-road.
In 2012 I bought another DH bike, and used it... 'till now. that is ( due to a kidney injury in my last day of shuttling, my Dh days may be over.. but that's another story).

Now for the really to-the-point part.

It all started here:
viewtopic.php?f=41&t=140396&start=325
(first post)

and here:
viewtopic.php?f=39&t=266526g

In the past years, a Karpiel Armageddon was my holy grail: not necessarilly the fastest bike on the track, nor the most useful ( if you don't happen to be used to haul your carcass off cliffs and vertical chutes, anyway) if all you do is riding down some DH trails, but you know the story... once a retrobiker gets fixed on a pursuit,....

So, a long and friendly conversation with Dan28 started.
After quite a lot of messages, and some phone conversation, we agreed upon a transaction. A few days later, this


appeared at my door.

Inside, quite a lot of goodies: a frame, a fork - not, let's say 'THE FORK!', couple of wheels, brakes, and so on.


The journey had just started!

first, a look at all the contents:






plus some other bits and bobs.

My intention was having the frame restored, the fork redone ( seals, bushings and oil). Then build the bike to huck standards: 24"x3 tires, Supermonster T, cromoly cranks, Gustav brakes.
I would have used as many parts from Dan28 as possible, substituting when they were beyond restorable or not functioning properly.

I started from the fork: dissasembled it, cleaned, examined all parts:


Mechanically it was more than Ok. However, the top crown had been substituted with a previous year one ( pre-2003) and, since it had a little different rake, it was really hard to mount and somehow twisted the structure; moreover it would not permit to mount a direct mount stem. also the lower crown had the steerer elongated by inserting an extension: I would have to see if it was strong enough.
so, for the fork, the plan was: first wrap the sliders in helitape, then reassemble, search for the corrrect upper crown and for the direct mount stem.
 

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Next, frame analysis came.


The frame was OK:
no dents or cracks, apart from some minor cracks on one of the linkage plates. It would have to stay that way, until I could be able to source some new plates ( almost impossible these days, even after trying to get in touch with the CNC machinist who carved the original plates).
Even if the original paint job wasn't at all ruined, I decided to have it refreshed with a new deep glitter orange spray, and went with black swingarm and black linkages.

In the meantime, some parts were collecting at my home: direct mount stem,


a new headset ( Nicolai stainless steel FettSet),


new bearings for the pivot points.

The rear shock that Dan gave me was a Manitou swinger 4-way: perfectly adequate, anyway I got a DHX 5 that could fit, so no problem with that. The big picture was to find an Avalanche DHS, but I could wait.

I started also to polish the seat tower parts:


and to redraw the frame stickers: original Karpiel stickers were missing, and I wasn't concerned, tue to the poor quality of them ( several layers of self-adhesive vinyl in different colour were forming the lettering, and no transparent laquer over them, thus leading to a peel-fest that left the frame devoid of all lettering, save for the headtube badge. I wanted something better).

Also, cleaned the linkages:


and started archiving, cataloguing and cleaning all bolts, screws and small fittings:
 

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Full bounce isn't really my thing, especially when gravity-specific, but I like your work, and I'm looking forward to updates on this :cool:.

Regards
 
The story so far encompasses the time span between the 17th of July, 2013 ( first contact with Dan2:cool:, the 10th of September ( arrival of the box) and the first days of October.

On the 7th, I got the stickers back from the printer ( I got a few sheets done, just in case...):


so I could get the frame to the body shop for painting.
The frame came back on the 12th of October ( the day of my injury):








Decals aren't too bad, IMHO:



The frame colour in person is quite a bit more orange-y than it shows in the photos.
 

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In the meantime, to solve the fork upper crown problem, I located in UK a pre-2003 Monster T that was somehow installed with a post-2003 upper crown. Needless to say that I bought that fork, and swapped crowns. Here it is the SuperMonster T with the correct crown:




The frame back together, headset installed:
 

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As you can see, rear brake is no problem - I have enogh brake adaptors to use whichever rotor size I wish.

Front brake, is another issue altogether. Magura Gustav don't have IS or PM mounts, instead the caliper 'floats' on a saddle that sports the frame mounts. You choose your rotor size, the type of fork mount ( IS or PM) and order the correct saddle... at the measly sum of 55 GBP upwards!
That is, when Gustavs were the norm on DH sleds. Right now, since they have been discontinued for three years at last, those saddles are rarer than unicorn's horn powder.... not to mention the pounds you have to part from when ( if) you find the correct one. I had one of those PM saddles from Dan28, but it spaced the caliper too far from the disk.

So I had to use a little lateral thinking to mount a Gustav caliper on my SuperMonster T, with a fork mount PM fitting for an 8" rotor, and using instead a 9" disk.... are you puzzled? so was I, until I found in Germany an adaptor that may be of some use.
So, after a few more days of waiting, by combining these:


with a little ingenuity, some swearing, couple of drills and files, I concocted THIS:



that does THIS to the caliper:
 

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Thanks, Exeter Man, for your kind comment!
I hope you''l enjoy the trip nonethelss...

By the way, here is the next offense to biking good taste that will be grafted on that frame:
 

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Thanks, walleater! Your comment is especially nice, considered that it comes from the homeland of freeride!

Let's go on......

Couple of shots of frame & fork together....




And a quick dry setup with wheels:


For today, it's all, folks!
 

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