Well, bit disappointing - I’ve been soaking this in a fairly strong acid solution and while it did clear the stem out:
It also wore the steel threads down too:
My fault, I should have ordered some caustic soda and used that, lesson learned.
So now the forks need new a steerer welding on (I’ve done that before) or I need to source a 1” fork.. hmmm..
And we’re back on track, I think I’m going to name this bike ‘project Franken-fork’..
A random road bike fork donated the top of its steerer and I got it welded on and a coat of paint to protect from rust.
I’ve done this sort of repair before, each time improving the method, hopefully this’ll hold up ok. I got a nice neat bead of weld around it and purposefully didn’t grind it all the way flat afterwards, I figure the more material on there the better.
Now I can build it up this weekend.
Woke up early this morning so I thrashed this out, I was really eager to see if the fork repair had worked. It did, the forks went in and tightened down in the headset with no issues.
It helped that I’d sorted all the components ready for the rebuild and had them all laid out ready. I’ve been for a couple of mile ride and I’m really happy with it - even with lower end kit these old steel Kona’s are great fun.
*not necessarily my political sentiments, but couldn’t resist a pic with the green graffiti (matches the tyres ).
Thread resurrection! I ended up taking this back apart to steal the entire component selection to rebuilt a 20” Hahanna of the same year. Decided this morning to build the frame up into a winter bike now the weathers starting to turn.
I used loads of odds from my spares stash to build a 1x9 with v brakes, mudguards and a rack. Bmx bars help make a fractionally too small frame super comfortable. Lovely.
