1994 Kona Fire Mountain restoration project.

[xerxes]

Re:

It's not a very good illustration, here's a better one:

A butted tube is actually thinned in the middle, rather than being thicker at the ends if you see what I mean.

You can get some quite fancy stuff too, like this ribbed Tange Ultimate Ultrastrong tubing:

 

[ajm]

I am indeed going for the same colour, as the deep metallic shine is lovely. The only change will be to gold forks and stem, as per the 1994 catalogue.
Interestingly, I've emailed Kona (joe@konaworld.com) to try and get a little history on the frame and they have no idea why the forks and stem are silver (they actually said 'gray'), surmising that they must be aftermarket. A quick Google Images search, however, shows up quite a few '94 Fire Mountains in exactly the same colour scheme as mine, leading me to think the gold forks must have been for the US market and the silver for UK/Europe. Curious.

I have never seen a 94 Fire Mountain with gold forks - not even a picture. The correct forks / stem are not grey though but silver with a good sparkle in it to match the lustre of the frame... I suspect there never was a gold version, just fancy lighting for the catalogue shot (or a pre-production model.)

It's a nice bike though, lovely paint and great to ride - mine is still my only mountain bike though definitely showing its 21 years of use and abuse since I bought it new...

 

[Relliott6879]

Ah well, I've got a bronze/gold Velocity stem that I'm going to get Argos to colour match. Not bothered about what's correct or not, as I've no intention of selling it on. I'm just going with what I find pleasing to my eye.

 

[k-rod]

. I'm just going with what I find pleasing to my eye.

Atta boy - that's how I did my bike, as well.

 

[redzephyr]

Re:

Nice project, look forward to seeing the updates.

Re the "gold/bronze" fork, I think your looking at something like these?

retrobike.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=108308

Those photos are poor but there was definitely a bronze P2. I have one of those bronze velocity stems as well.

Maybe you should go full on metallic gold in the respray? It'd probably look pretty fantastic. Red and gold is a classic combo.

 

[Relliott6879]

Yep, exactly that colour. I'm toying with the idea of having the Evolution clamps and braces for my Maguras done in the same colour, too.

 

[Relliott6879]

Finally got the frame back today. That drive-side crank was properly seized on there; after cutting away a good amount of the aluminium around the square taper, Mark still had to 'persuade' the remainder off the bottom bracket axle with a hammer!

I took the opportunity to weigh the bare frame and she came in at 5.22lb, so she's not going to be a featherweight build, but I'm hopeful of sub-25lb.

This is how she stands tonight. She'll be off to Argos on 8 Aug, I'll post the 'after' pictures when I get her back.

 

[Relliott6879]

Just a quick couple of photos of the stem I have for colour comparison, which I will be getting Argos to colour match for the stem and fork. The very bright lights in the kitchen have bleached out the bronze/gold to a certain extent, though it helps if you look at the contrast from the silver top cap on the stem.

 

[ajm]

Re:

Yep, that's the original colour on the stem/forks. I would never describe it as gold though! Obviously colour is pretty subjective... either way, I'll be impressed if you can get the shade and lustre of the paint (both the red and the silver) accurately matched. Even 20 years ago Kona weren't able to give me any details about the paint at all (my bottle of touch-up paint was dried out when I got the bike so I was looking for a replacement.)

 

[Relliott6879]

I'm just taking the highly unscientific approach of taking the existing parts down to Argos and asking "match these, please"!