1990 Marin Palisades zolatone refurb

sparkybhp

Senior Retro Guru
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Picked this up last night after seeing it in the marketplace and eBay watch thread on here. I thought the £25 buy it now was more than fair and only 30mins away from me.
I’ve only had the chance to give it a brief once over but the seatpost moves freely and the paintwork is remarkably rust free - a lot of these have a lot of surface rust depending on what sort of use and storage they’ve been subjected to I guess.
The other plus is that it’s 100% original as far as I can tell - obviously the saddle will need to go but everything else should be ok after a clean and service.
Oh, and I lucked in on the size too, the photos looked promising and at 19” it should be perfect for me.
I’ll try and keep the thread updated as I work my way through it. The plan being to keep it original, just clean and serviced, I think it’s earned the few scuffs and scrapes on the paint over the last 30+ years.
 
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Stripped and cleaned, came apart no problem. The painted parts have come up pretty well with t-cut but the zolatone doesn’t really want to know. Anyone have any previous experience of cleaning up that type of paint job? It’s not too bad at all really just wondered if there’s a way to remove/improve any small scuffs and things..
Looking pretty good so far. :)
 
By all accounts it’s pretty resilient stuff, but there’s a thread on here where it’s suggested to cover it in smooth peanut butter, let it dry and then wash off…. with visible improvement apparently! Try explaining that one to the wife! 😂
 
Haha, that sounds suspiciously like a late April fools joke to me, sadly out of the question at any rate due to my son’s peanut allergy.. I reckon I’ll leave it as is, was going for a ‘survivor’ type build anyway.
 
The zolatone paint is as good as gets really. Warm soapy water and a washing up scourer will do the job ok.
Its dries a little slow, almost porous.

Good little project for you, is the bottom bracket ok? Usually gritty by now.
 
Cheers, I’ll do that. Yeah wheel, headset and bb bearings will all need flushing out and regreasing. Might even put a sealed bb back in this one, I’m hoping to use it a fair bit.
 

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