1992 KHS Montana Pro

[MSYT]

I feel like the hunt for a decent Montana Pro has taken a while… in that hunt though I did find this.

It’s not a 93 like I wanted (and now have) but instead a 92. How do I know?

- The serial number is on the head tube instead of BB
- The decals have a pink shadow rather than blue
- The stem is a black Zoom rather than a ‘titanium’ Zoom
- The saddle is Ritchey rather than Bontrager
- The seat stays have rack lugs near the canti hanger
- And if I had the wheelset the rims would be (front) Bontrager (rear) Ritchey rather than double Bontrager.

Ok so it’s a 92. Cool. First year imported in to the UK I believe but the bike isn’t in the best condition. The frame had been sanded down at some point in place and the seat post is stuck. It has a random wheelset, some DX V brakes, a Rockshox Indy fork, no bars and some later XT brifters. On the plus side.. I have all the rest of the original components except for the bars and Ritchey rim.

The plan is to restore it and… we’ll ride it from time to time but yeah mostly restore it.

 

[MSYT]

And with that intro comes the first update.

I stripped the bike down without too much fuss. The original XT BB is shagged. A lot of play in that so that’s going on the replacement list.

Stem came out no problem. Wheelset has already been used on another bike. V Brakes and brifters have gone in to parts bin and I’m contemplating whether I keep the fork or not. I might stick the original rigid fork on.

ANYWAY

The seat post. It’s stuck. No worries. I’ll just start going through the motions with soaking and heating up the tubes. I assumed it was an X Lite post, with the big X decal being on it but I don’t know for sure. Either way I didn’t really want to damage it.

Soaking in penetrant. Heating with a blow torch. Twisting via the saddle. Nothing. Repeated that for a few days and then thought I’d clamp the post in the vice to add more leverage. That just ended up crushing the post so I resorted to emptying a can of penetrant in to the seat tube and hoping I’d filled it up enough to soak for the next few weeks.

TODAY WAS TIME FOR THE BIG GUNS.
I have access to some big pulling power but I thought I’d start with 1 tonne. A couple of old cups in the BB and a bolt through that with some loading plates. A hole drilled through the top of the seat post for another loader and… 1 tonne didn’t do it.

Ok so 5 tonnes should. At 2 I broke the seat post at the top. No surprising really as I only had a few mm because the clamping area was in the way so I cut that off and drilled another hole much further down.

At 2.5 tonnes I bent the loading bolt and the bottom because it didn’t have enough support so that needed a bit of rejigging and we pull again. 3.5 tonnes reached and there was a huge bang. The frame dropped and the top of the seat post went flying over my head. Tensile failure in the post. Zero movement out of the seat tube.

Looks like I’m resorting to caustic soda!

 

[sparkybhp]

You need to freeze the frame not heat it.. ally expands faster than steel so heat makes it worse.
Good luck and look forward to seeing what you do with this.

 

[fearfactoryüberalles]

Freezing is the only easy way, if I had a dime every time I see doing it the wrong way, NOS frames would be bought only...