1988 Muddy Fox Courier 'B52'

[spatuluk]

Re:

It arrived! Unfortunately, it's not exactly in survivor condition.. I shall illustrate via the medium of photos (they're not great - I'll take some more comprehensive photos tomorrow, when I have some daylight):

Looks alright from a distance!


What the.. why would anyone do this? Trailer attachment? Seatpost removal? Was the bike not rusting enough from the inside? :shock:


Exage Mountain U brake


Someone's been trying to remove the plastic bottom bracket, methinks. It's plastic at both ends. :?


More plastic nonsense. Really not liking the look of Exage!


Not one, but two bottle mounts! No mount on the seat tube, tho.


The chainset is a Sakae XCU. I'm pretty sure it's not original. The mechs are both Exage, although the rear looks a bit rough. The shifters and brakes are also Exage, but they're fooked. Whoever thought plastic brake levers were a good idea deserves a good hard kick in the nuts. I wouldn't be surprised if the plastic bottom bracket also turns out to be Exage. Utter dross!

The frame should clean up pretty well, but I'm not sure what to do about the weird hole through the seat tube. It's probably not going to do much harm, but it's going to bug me!

edit: The serial number is H8G81803, if anyone's interested. I'm not sure how that syncs with Muddy Fox or Tushingham serial numbers.

 

[spatuluk]

Re:

Here's a couple more pics that I took before heading to work:

Drive side! The frame is 19".


Looks like the chainset has been trying to get too friendly with the chain.


So.. plan time!
First things first, I'm going to have to strip the frame, fix the rust, and clean it thoroughly. I'm hoping I can get away with not respraying it or replacing the decals. I'll be using a long seatpost, so the holes in the seat tube aren't a structural worry, but I need to plug them with something. Not sure what.

Next up is building it again, and my biggest quandary.. on face value, Exage Mountain components look like guff, and seem like an accident waiting to happen, but I intended to try and keep the bike factory spec, so I'll give them a try before I give up on them (hopefully the damage to them isn't too bad). So, I just need a chainset, BB, and probably also wheels. I haven't examined the wheels too closely, but the rims don't match, and I'm pretty sure Shimano never made a hub that looked like a toilet roll..

 

[drcarlos]

Re: 1988 Red Muddy Fox Courier oddity

I have a set on Mountain Cranks (no rings thought I'm afraid) for sale if you are interested.

Carl.

 

[MADJEZ]

Re:

I too have an 88/89 mish-mash !

http://www.retrobike.co.uk/forum/viewto ... p;t=242961

Haven't progressed on it unfortunately, suspect it will have to get passed on to a Muddy Fox
person who will give it the appropriate love since I'm really a GT bod.

 

[spatuluk]

Re: 1988 Red Muddy Fox Courier oddity

Nice bike! Muddy Fox were not fans of end of season sales, it seems.

 

[spatuluk]

Re:

This morning, I removed the crank to see what I was up against regarding the BB..



Crikey! Not sure if a pin spanner will remove that (will give it a try), as the plastic looks too degraded. I suspect the previous owner was trying to remove it using locking pliers or something. I think I'll try a hacksaw, or maybe just a sharp stanley knife. Failing that, my dad ditched a knackered old soldering iron on me a while ago. Nothing can fight being melted! :twisted:

The seatpost is so scratched up that I can't see any sign of a diameter on it. I can only *just* make out the minimum insert line! The post is a tiny thing.. my son's balance bike has a longer seat post than this. Anyway, I did a quick and dirty circumference measurement, which came out at 83mm, aka 26.4mm diameter. This seems to match with other '88 Couriers, but if anyone knows the seatpost diameter of a B52, that'd be handy. I might buy a smaller seatpost and shim it, just in case I'm wrong.

 

[andyz]

Re:

26.4mm sounds spot on, my red Courier is that size. I might have a spare seatpost in that size somewhere if you need one. It will have been fitted to a Fox at some point.

 

[spatuluk]

Re:

If it's black, I'm interested. If not, I'm quite tempted to get a Brand-X inline for it.

Some things I don't mind veering off-spec for. The saddle will almost certainly be swapped for a Charge Spoon, because I wub them very muches, and the V8 pedals from my Tufftrax will also make their way onto it, because I'm flat footed and have some lovely scars caused by razor-sharp cage pedals implanting themselves into the back of my leg.

Looking up Exage BBs, it looks like I just need to replace the cups, which is nice (I like non-cartridge BBs). Having said that, the big dent in the chainstay, next to where the lug has a notch in it, might be indicating that the current spindle is too short.. :? I'm pretty sure the current crank wouldn't move without that dent, but maybe an Exage crank won't have that problem. I shall have to see!

edit: Comparing my photo to the exposed spindle in this post (4th pic) seems to indicate that my spindle is about 10mm too short. I'll measure mine first, but I think I'm heading for a :facepalm:

 

[andyz]

Re:

The seatpost is silver unfortunately.

Your spindle is probably fine, its most likely the crankset which is wrong. It should be an Exage mountain one, although mine has a mountain-lx one which is a bit nicer.
The spindle should be around 121mm long.

 

[Sundayjumper]

Re: Re:

Crikey! Not sure if a pin spanner will remove that (will give it a try), as the plastic looks too degraded.

Made by SKF. I remember them, I fitted a fair few BITD, and there was a specific tool for them. I can't find and pics of the tool I remember but the internet says a Park BBT-4 will fit.