I’ve sort of fancied a Look mtb as a project for a while, I really like the logo/decals design and the fact that they’re not all that common. I found this one on Gumtree locally at a fair price so went ahead and collected it.
It’s mostly original, only missing the correct 3x7 combo brake/shifters. Overall condition is pretty good - hopefully a decent strip and clean should bring it up a treat.
Not sure whether to make this 100% original or ‘pimp’ it a bit - I have some XT 3x7’s which would go on, and possibly some quadra 21 forks (the logos on the forks would be a great match for the bike decals). Both would be more or less period correct upgrades, I guess I’ll see how the frame cleans up and go from there.
Had a bit of time today to get this stripped down and cleaned up. The frame has a few little battle scars but is mostly in good condition. A deep clean with wd40 and then a polish with t-cut brought it up a treat.
I’ve offered up the rock shox forks I have and reckon it looks pretty sweet, although I still haven’t decided which direction to go component wise..
I’ll clean up the wheels and other bits and see what direction this goes in, but overall I’m liking how this is looking so far.
More progress, got the wheels stripped, cleaned and serviced today. Fitted some IRC tyres which I had as spare.
Tried the original forks vs the rock shox..
Kinda thinking that it looks better as a rigid, anyone else agree?
And we’re done! This rides absolutely sweet - really goes to show if you put the effort in to servicing then you’ll end up with a decent result - even with the relatively low end 300LX mechs and Exage hubs.
The XT shifters are a nice upgrade, no doubt these help in lifting the quality of the shifting and braking feel, oh and I must have about 4 sets of these DX brakes - so they had to go on.
I’d normally upgrade to a sealed bb as a matter of course on a build like this - but there wasn’t a mark in the bearing cups so this got re-used and it’s as smooth as butter. .
I may upgrade the mechs to XT spec in the future - not that it needs it, but it’s nice to match stuff up and the bike does deserve it.
Just need to put miles on it now and enjoy.
