At last its more or less finished- until the correct frorks and front brake turns up that is.
This is a late 86 (built for 87 model year) SM600 and it has been rebuilt to match the one I bought BITD as an apprentice engineer. The original bike did thousands of miles before being stolen from my garage in 1995.
It has been the most difficult build I have done. These early parts are hard to come by- especially some of the low rent parts like foam grips and plastic pedals. The front mech was particularly hard to find in the right size. I ended up getting a smaller clamp size and milling it out to fit.
It is about 70-80% correct- as I have mentioned it has the wrong forks, the original ones I found turned out to be bent and cracked at the crown.
Brake levers are not correct as they should have plastic lever blades, these were too badly damaged to go on so a pair of Dia compe 4 finger jobbies donated its blades which were machined down and drilled to fit the Suntour bodies.
The SM600 had Suntour XC Sport mechs originally but I went for period correct Shimano M700 Deer head mechs as I did on my old bike BITD- shift quality was far better even with Suntour shfters still in place.
Other jobs to do include making some new Chromo spindles to fit the MKS Grafight pedals that i have- these were originally specced but I have given up trying to find any MTB ones so have a pair of NOS BMX ones to fit.
I'll post a full spec later but heres a few pics for now. I hope you like it, a lot of pain and long hours on eBay went in to this...
This is a late 86 (built for 87 model year) SM600 and it has been rebuilt to match the one I bought BITD as an apprentice engineer. The original bike did thousands of miles before being stolen from my garage in 1995.
It has been the most difficult build I have done. These early parts are hard to come by- especially some of the low rent parts like foam grips and plastic pedals. The front mech was particularly hard to find in the right size. I ended up getting a smaller clamp size and milling it out to fit.
It is about 70-80% correct- as I have mentioned it has the wrong forks, the original ones I found turned out to be bent and cracked at the crown.
Brake levers are not correct as they should have plastic lever blades, these were too badly damaged to go on so a pair of Dia compe 4 finger jobbies donated its blades which were machined down and drilled to fit the Suntour bodies.
The SM600 had Suntour XC Sport mechs originally but I went for period correct Shimano M700 Deer head mechs as I did on my old bike BITD- shift quality was far better even with Suntour shfters still in place.
Other jobs to do include making some new Chromo spindles to fit the MKS Grafight pedals that i have- these were originally specced but I have given up trying to find any MTB ones so have a pair of NOS BMX ones to fit.
I'll post a full spec later but heres a few pics for now. I hope you like it, a lot of pain and long hours on eBay went in to this...