1993 Marin Team Titanium

Benandemu

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The 1993 Marin Team Titanium is much the same as the 1992 model. The only difference I can note is that the decals on the '92 are bright yellow, and the top tube decal is reminiscent of the decals used across the '92 range. These frames were the third design from Litespeed to be used by Marin. The head and seat tubes are still using the alloy spacers glued in place, but the most notable difference is the finish. Prior to '92, it was customary to polish the frames to achieve the high shine finish, but it was realised that stress at the welds could be reduced dramatically by blasting the welds and dissipating stress. Litespeed's technique was to polish the frames as usual, and then mask the three main tubes to retain their shine before the rest of the bike was blasted. Funny, if you look at the whole '93 range of Marin bikes, they emulated this finish with paint on their steel frames.

This particular frame has been carted around with me for 7 years now, waiting quietly for its turn.
The original advert from 2007 is here...

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The frame was in a pretty sorry state when it arrived, but I knew how rare there are, so persisted in gathering parts ready for the day to restore and repair it. The bottle cage is stuck to the frame, and the bolts just turn as the riv nuts inside are spinning in the frame. The decals are all shot, but at least evidence of their style and size remains so that I can get them copied. The worst part is that there's a seat post rammed down inside the seat tube, and it's been corroding for some time. The trouble with aluminium alloy is that it bonds itself chemically to Titanium. The only logical way to get this out, is to 'corrode' it out using caustic soda. Having no experience with caustic soda, I set about the task naively. It says to mix 250g to 4 pints of water for drain cleaning, so I mixed 250g to a cup full for aluminium killing! Firstly, I didn't know that the water would get so hot so quickly - like, it will melt the plastic cup you're using kind of hot! Anyway, I poured it down the seat tube and gazed on as my own little volcano erupted, spitting and hissing from the middle of the seat tube. This stuff really works! I splashed some on my hand, and then scratched the top of my head without realising it was on my hands - Imagine Ralgex or Deep Heat on your scalp! The acid was burning the back of my head and my hand. I had to submerge my head in the sink while scrubbing my scalp with a nail brush and Fairy liquid; that looked good.

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The stuck seat post...

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Go on, look a little closer...

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The pouring in of the caustic soda (still naive at this point)...

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My second attempt was the pack some caustic soda crystals into the seat tube around the seat post and then pour boiling water on them as it gets a better (read:more violent) reaction. Unbelievable display of bubbling grey liquid metal almost. Vesuvius springs to mind, although there's no lava.

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The Dremel is next, as I'll need to tackle the stuck bottle cage.
 
After a lot of rubbing down with various grades of emery cloth, and then an hour with the autosol I've managed to get somewhere close. This of course was after an episode with the Dremel to remove the bottle cage. As I mentioned earlier about Titanium and Aluminium alloys bonding together, the same had happened to where the bottle cage had been mounted to the frame. There are some pitting marks left on the seat tube from where the cage had welded itself to the frame. I'm afraid that minor damage (deep pitting) was unavoidable as once the bolts were removed the cage had to be prized from the frame as it was stuck solid.

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Next task will be to rebuild some Manitou 2's I bought recently on here. The rebuild kit arrived last week from Suspension Fork Parts.
 
frame came out pretty good feller,,like the brushed and polished look,,,whats going onto her anything crazy ....
 
Re:

My kind of build thread and I always liked the paint/blast the junctions style of the 93s.
And of course, you know your Marins.

Next time rather than scrubbing your head as scrubbing just takes skin off, neutralise the alkali of caustic soda with something. Even juice, orange/lemon. You'll have some acid like vinegar (acitic acid) perhaps?

Anway on with the build :)
 
Thanks for the appreciation. As far as components go, it'll be based around XTR M900. However, some early Titanium Nuke Proof hubs, NOS Marin Titanium bar/stem combo, NOS Tioga Ti cassette are among the extras.

I can see this project isn't going to be an easy one as my next update will show.

I bought the Manitou 2's on here a few months back from Doug, I think. Anyway, I was keen to have them because they had no Purple anodising left on the lower legs. I want this bike to be void of colour, instead I'll focus on enhancing the frame by keeping things monotone. I had planned on polishing the lower legs of some Manitou 2's, and then getting some decals made up, but not this time.

So, Manitou 2 rebuild part 1...

Here's what we're starting with. Tired 2's with a shimmed 1 inch steerer...

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Gently prize open the top caps from each stanchion...

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I wasn't expecting half a pint of smelly black water to flow out all over the table and floor, but all part of the mystery of what you'll find inside.

Using the super long (homemade) 5mm Allen key, start undoing the bolts at the bottom of the inside of each leg...

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There are no photos of the next bit, but it involves sharply yanking the lower legs off the stanchions, but for my part it involved hammers and blocks of wood! All will be revealed why...

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Because everything was rusted up inside the right leg. The surprise was to see that the forks have had a spring upgrade kit fitted at some point, hence why there's so much rust everywhere, as the springs are steel. Pretty ugly inside...

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I won't have time today to fully clean everything properly, but I'll give stuff a wipe over with a rag, and scrape away at the rusty bits to assess the damage...

Once you've pulled the stack of elastomers or springs in this case, off the steel rods in each legs, then the rods will drop out the other end of the fork as they're no longer captive...

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20 minutes with a cloth and a gently scraping with a screwdriver get to this...

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Not bad really, and I'm confident most of it will come good. Some of the lower parts of the stanchions will be pitted from the rust, but fine emery paper rubbing will get them smooth, and when packed with grease I don't think it will make any difference at all. The tops of the stanchions are near perfect...

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I do have a new steerer for the occasion which is just a steel threaded one. I would like one of the Titanium ones that's available, but not sure if the minor weight advantage outweighs the potential issue of using a Titanium quill stem inside a Titanium steerer - it could spell trouble later on.

That's it for now. Proper cleaning of the forks before they start going back together next.
 
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