1988 Specialized Hardrock

[27motorhead]

BB ready to go in. Removed the caged balls and let them free to increase ball count.


Big fan of anti-seize rather than just grease everywhere. So this got put on the cup threads and BB shell. Will ensure in another 36 years time, It'll come out just fine!


BB in and spinning a lot better than it was before.


Chainring bolts all anti-seized up ready for assembly.


First bits back on... Bottom bracket, chainset, rear derailleur, front derailleur and seatpost QR.

 

[Guinessisgoodforyou]

I love seeing builds like this. A bike is saved and a good usable bicycle emerges. The Japanese have an expression for the perfection of imperfection. Wabi sabi. A lot of my bikes are like this, as I'd be afraid to use a minty bike. I like this a lot.

 

[Imlach]

That explains your like of green Rob, wasabi bikes

 

[27motorhead]

I love seeing builds like this. A bike is saved and a good usable bicycle emerges. The Japanese have an expression for the perfection of imperfection. Wabi sabi. A lot of my bikes are like this, as I'd be afraid to use a minty bike. I like this a lot.

What a great phrase! ALL my bikes are a bit battered. The sheer lack of space (or was that too many bikes?!*) in my previous single garage meant that patina grew from not use, but them knocking against each other. However most did arrive with plenty of patina to be fair!

 

[27motorhead]

A bit of cleaning up of the braking surface was required. If you ever want to get your hands instantly mucky, I 100% recommend doing this.
Before:


After:

 

[27motorhead]

Late one night more bits when on. Headset cups were pressed in after an hour trying to find the press tool . Headset loosely fitted.


Cleaned up calipers were fitted to the brake bosses, but something was amiss. Looks OK from this angle...


But from above things are looking a tad wonky...

This needs investigating in daylight as I can barely squeeze past the bike in the garage. Who put all these bikes in the way???

 

[27motorhead]

Early one morning thanks to the dog waking me up I chucked a couple more bits onto the bike such as pedals, seatpost and saddle, but knew I should really be looking at the fork!

Without taking them off and putting them on some V-blocks and surface plate, I put x2 steel rules across the blades at the dropouts and just above the brake bosses. I also threaded in x2 M6 coach bolts as these were the longest M6 bolts I had to hand to help exaggerate any wonkiness going on. These were inserted with a 50mm projection from the end of the brake bosses.


Sighting along the legs you can see there is a tiny bit of twist in them with the left dropout slightly setback, but this is marginal.


This however doesn't look right...


Some additional lines help highlight that we have a bit of alignment issue with the brake bosses.
Left boss is set further out/higher than the right boss
Both are not perpendicular to the fork blades and we have some parallelogram geometry going on

I guess this will certainly test the amount of adjustment of the brakes out!!!

 

[Guinessisgoodforyou]

Early one morning thanks to the dog waking me up I chucked a couple more bits onto the bike such as pedals, seatpost and saddle, but knew I should really be looking at the fork!

Without taking them off and putting them on some V-blocks and surface plate, I put x2 steel rules across the blades at the dropouts and just above the brake bosses. I also threaded in x2 M6 coach bolts as these were the longest M6 bolts I had to hand to help exaggerate any wonkiness going on. These were inserted with a 50mm projection from the end of the brake bosses.
View attachment 853103

Sighting along the legs you can see there is a tiny bit of twist in them with the left dropout slightly setback, but this is marginal.
View attachment 853104

This however doesn't look right...
View attachment 853105

Some additional lines help highlight that we have a bit of alignment issue with the brake bosses.
Left boss is set further out/higher than the right boss
Both are not perpendicular to the fork blades and we have some parallelogram geometry going on
View attachment 853106
I guess this will certainly test the amount of adjustment of the brakes out!!!

That looks like it's a manufacturing fault. A poor welding fixture perhaps?

 

[27motorhead]

That looks like it's a manufacturing fault. A poor welding fixture perhaps?

100% a manufacturing fault. Someone didn't quite do what they should have done, but it got through QC regardless. But it has also added some interesting photos to this build thread!

 

[27motorhead]

Crappy photo of handlebar assembly before it got disassembled and cleaned. Looks like we have original everything apart from the gear cables as these have black plastic ferrules. Didn't think they used black plastic ferrules back in 88?

The chrome handlebars had been sprayed with a silver paint. It was amazingly well stuck to the chrome surface.


If I'm not mistaken this is a Nitto code?


Grips were carefully removed (didn't want them splitting) and then washed. Water in the glass was what oozed out of the grips. I've seen a lot worse!


Sadly no photos of the brake or gear shifters in bits as these were done late at night. This is the handlebar assembly back on sans silver paint and grips. Everything nicely lubed, greased or anti-seized and patina-a-plenty. I can see why they sprayed the bars, but prefer pitted chrome over silver paint...