1993 Lava Dome Build from MTB to tourer

[Bootstrap Bob]

I am quite a lucky person to still own my very first mountain bike, little did I know when I bought it back in 1993 that it would eventually become a retro bike. I don’t know why I kept it and never traded it in but I have had others and usually sell them on. Perhaps it was the history and places it has taken me or perhaps it was just that I liked to ride it, or perhaps all of these.

After a discussion with my wife about doing a long cycle ride, her on an old Claud Butler tourer and me on my Kona a plan started to develop.

The Kona had sat unused in our carport for 8 years after finally admitting that it could not keep up with the more modern mountain bikes but I just couldn’t bring myself to sell it. I had travelled thousands of miles on that bike, in 2001 it took me from Land’s End to John O’groats and then in 2003 it took me across the country from Morecombe bay to Whitby on the Roses coast to coast route. It was time for a refresh.

A few months ago I posted that I intended to give my Lava Dome another lease of life and turn it into a tourer, this is the story of that rework……………..

Since 1993 the Kona hasn’t changed that much. I converted it to a more road biased bike with road tyres, mudguards and a rack for the long rides. I added Pace AirForce forks in 2002 and Deore XT Parallel link V-brakes and brifters but that’s about it.

My aim for this rework was to re-use whatever I could and upgrade the bits that were going to make a difference to my cycling pleasure and comfort. Oh and the frame needed an overhaul so why not go to town on that and give it a new paint job?

So this is what the bike looked like at the start.



First task was to strip the bike down completely.



The next job I wanted to tackle were the Pace forks, They had never had a rebuild and even though they still worked it felt time to refresh them. I downloaded all the necessary files so I could get an understanding of their operation and assembly then started the dis-assembly process. They are quite a complex set of forks to control stiffness with three air pressure chambers that control sag, rate and progression. The damping on the other hand is very crude and is controlled by a single plastic flexing shim in the piston and a variable orifice hole connecting the working inner piston chamber and a concentric oil return flow chamber. The orifice hole size is controlled by a rotating tapered slider that is moved via the lever on top of the stanchions. Compression and rebound damping are not independently controllable but there is a remote lockout that drops a plunger into the oil flow above the piston chamber thereby preventing oil flow and locking the damper.




With all the parts cleaned and degreased I could check the seals and o-rings and rebuild with some nice fresh oil.


With the forks rebuilt it was time to move onto the frame.

First I wanted to measure the decals for size and position.



And then I needed to remove them using a hot air gun.



There were no seriously rusty areas but an awful lot of surface rust where the paint had chipped or scratched.

Here is the frame after sanding out the bad areas and preparing it for the first filler coat. I used wooden dowels to plug threaded holes and masking tape on the brake towers.



Next came a good clean with degreasing fluid and then the first high fill primer coat.



After drying it got a light sanding to smooth out any imperfections, another degrease and then the normal primer coat.



After leaving this to dry it was time for another light sand and degrease and then the base black coat.



But what was this base black coat for? For that you will have to wait for the next update.

 

[pedestrian]

Man, I hate cliffhangers.

 

[Bootstrap Bob]

At the beginning of this build I said that I was ‘going to town’ on the paint job so it was not going to remain black although that is the chosen option for many. The base black coat is required for what was to come next and that was Chromacoat Peacock paint. A colour changing metallic paint that varies in the light from blue to green to purple.



With surplus paint I decided to give the Project Two forks the same treatment which is just as well as you will discover further on in this build.


The final stage which has to be undertaken an hour after the Chromacoat was the two part clear laquer and then leave it plenty of time to harden. The instructions say 24 hours but I left it a few days before starting the build.

In went the Cane Creek headset after a good clean and re-grease, then the Pace forks and a new stem. As this was to be more of a touring bike I decided to lift the bars but to maintain the reach so out came the 5° x 130 stem and it was replaced with a Jitsie 25° x 135 Forged Stem.



Moving to the bottom bracket I kept the square drive unit but removed, cleaned and re-greased the bearings before re-assembling with the original crank and ring gears (24-36-4



On to the wheels and I decided to re-use the Shimano Paralax Silver label hubs as I found them bomb proof and maintenance free but I went up to 35mm Halo SAS rims and black Sapin spokes. The extra width should give me a better ride when compared to the 22mm rims found on retro bikes. I don’t own a wheel building jig but I find using the frame or forks works just as well if you have a means to measure accurately.


Onto the Halo rims I fitted Schwalbe Billy Bonkers tyres to give me a large comfortable tyre with low rolling resistance. Oh and tan side walls because it goes rather well with the new paintwork.



In the next update I will move onto brakes and drive train and the first of two unfortunate discoveries that required a bit of a re-think.

 

[Bootstrap Bob]

Moving onto brakes. With no mounting lugs for disc brakes I was really forced down the route of V-brakes again for this build. I suppose I could have had someone weld on the lugs but that was likely to be quite expensive. I was trying to keep the costs down and since I had a very good set of Deore XT parallel motion V-brakes I decided this was to be the direction I pursued. This was where I made my first unfortunate discovery. I had kind of expected this to be an issue but carried on choosing to fix it when I knew more. My decision to move from 22mm to 35mm rim widths had the unfortunate side effect of pushing the brake blocks out by 6.5mm on each side which meant the lever arms would have been at a large outward pointing angle which was inefficient and looked rather silly.



To overcome this I had to remove the conical cup and washer that sat immediately behind the block leaving me no room to adjust the toe angle. On the front this was not an issue as I could just rotate the pivot clamps around the stanchions of the Pace forks but on the rear this could not be done. I decided to leave them initially with just a single washer but it seams that the mounting pivots are not always parallel to each other or indeed the central plane of the wheel. The first ride of the bike post build confirmed my suspicions and there was a lot of noise so I did a bit of head scratching and came up with a solution I am quite pleased with.

I created some aluminium packing wedges of varying angles that sat behind the blocks and allowed me to fine tune the angle.



Here you can see the wedges positioned behind the blocks with the conical cup taking up the angle on the outside of the brake lever.




Moving up to the cockpit I decided that since this was to be a tourer I needed some more appropriate bars. I didn’t want drops or gravel bars and certainly not straight bars but something that was going to be comfortable. A lot of touring set ups use Jones H-bars but the large 45° sweep was just going to be too much for me. Alpkit did quite a lot of options so I went to try a few out in the store. After much deliberation I settled on Alpkit Scope bars with a 14° sweep which was the most comfortable for me. Onto these I fitted my existing Profile Design bar ends to give me options for hand positions and a set of Odi grips which I really like on my trials bike.



Brakes and gear changing were provided by the super reliable Shimano Deore XT ST-M738 brifters.



Derailleurs were going to be the original parts after a good clean up so on the front it was an Exage 3spd and on the rear the Deore LX



The final bit to fit for now is the seat post and saddle. Any Kona fanatics will probably know that seat post diameter was a bit hit and miss in the early 90s and several sizes were used. For my bike it was a 26mm diameter, not much chance of me swapping that out for a suspension seat post so back on went the original after a good greasing to prevent it seizing up.



My initial saddle choice was the same saddle that had taken me to all corners of the UK and that was a late 90s Selle San Marco Gel saddle which I found very comfortable at the time but that was over 20 years ago.


So the bulk of the build is complete.



In the next update I will move onto the final transition into the Kona’s touring setup, I will talk about the second unfortunate discovery and my solution to it and there will be some bonus material that makes this into a proper long distance touring machine.