Apologies for another Zaskar build thread. Ive hankered after one of these for a good few years and finally got round to paying too much on eBay for a tired and dirty 16" frame.
I didn't take too many pics of the build process, but got a few.
The eBay ad was light on details and it was definitely a gamble as the Manitou 3 forks looked totally knackered, the smattering of parts looked well worn with heavy oxidizing. Anyway the trigger was pulled and this thing arrived a few weeks ago.
Here it is in the cold light of my garage. Good grief i'm gonna need more autosol...
I stripped it down and started inspecting the parts. The elastomers in the forks had turned to mush. It took some considerable effort to get them out. Unfortunately the long bolt that goes through the elastomer stack had snapped where it enters the adjuster barrel at the bottom of the fork. I still have to drill out the snapped part of the both from the barrel, but I had a good set of Manitou EFCs sitting about, so they'll do fine for the time being.
Then the polishing began:
Turned out the frame was in really good nick. No cracks or dents and only small surface scratches here and there. Started with the 800 girt sand paper, progressing to 1200, then a good buff with the autosol and we're in business.
See that left hand crank...that fkr didn't want to budge. I stripped the threads using a standard crank puller, then tried a modified bearing puller. Still not budging. Applied heat to the crank and still nothing. Eventually after lots of bad language i decided life's too short and out came the dremmel:
That was pretty satisfying actually.
Now for some parts. I got an almost full m900 groupset from Niels (just missing a LH shifter):
Polishing done. I found a battered old Uno seatpost that fitted. It's rubbish but will do for now. Also sourced some cool GT grips. It's beginning to take shape:
Then some tryes from Germany and a new BB as the M900 one in Niel's groupset was a 68mm shell and the zaskar needed a 73mm:
Got a LH m900 shifter and a flite saddle from Nikica. Unfortunately the shifter was broken. The philips screwdriver is pointing at the bit that was broken:
Luckily Wadsy was selling some M900 shifter spares with stripped barrel adjuster threads, so I got those stripped down Nikica's shifter and bingo, one working and fully serviced LH shifter). Weirdly i really enjoyed that process. There's great satisfaction in getting old parts like that working again.
Finally she's all together. the whole thing only took about 5 weeks from start to finish. Still gotta do something about that damn seatpost!
Ive a thing for shiney bikes, so brought the other two out for a bit of fresh air:
This is my '94 Sintesi Bromont. Bought in BikePro in Kingsheath, Birmingham and raced (badly) for 4 years before being superseded by a '98 Kona Stab (which I also still have). Being a poor student at the time the Sintesi had a mis-mash of parts, but I've since replaced those with a full M737 XT group.
My AMP has a thread somewhere on here, but here she is again. It's not really a rider as there's so much play in the linkages, but she takes pride of place in the garage and I frequently just sit and marvel at the pure engineering beauty
As usual, I couldnt have done the Zaskar without the help from some great people here on Retrobike. So to, Martin, Niels, Kurt and Nikica...cheers fellas!
I didn't take too many pics of the build process, but got a few.
The eBay ad was light on details and it was definitely a gamble as the Manitou 3 forks looked totally knackered, the smattering of parts looked well worn with heavy oxidizing. Anyway the trigger was pulled and this thing arrived a few weeks ago.
Here it is in the cold light of my garage. Good grief i'm gonna need more autosol...
I stripped it down and started inspecting the parts. The elastomers in the forks had turned to mush. It took some considerable effort to get them out. Unfortunately the long bolt that goes through the elastomer stack had snapped where it enters the adjuster barrel at the bottom of the fork. I still have to drill out the snapped part of the both from the barrel, but I had a good set of Manitou EFCs sitting about, so they'll do fine for the time being.
Then the polishing began:
Turned out the frame was in really good nick. No cracks or dents and only small surface scratches here and there. Started with the 800 girt sand paper, progressing to 1200, then a good buff with the autosol and we're in business.
See that left hand crank...that fkr didn't want to budge. I stripped the threads using a standard crank puller, then tried a modified bearing puller. Still not budging. Applied heat to the crank and still nothing. Eventually after lots of bad language i decided life's too short and out came the dremmel:
That was pretty satisfying actually.
Now for some parts. I got an almost full m900 groupset from Niels (just missing a LH shifter):
Polishing done. I found a battered old Uno seatpost that fitted. It's rubbish but will do for now. Also sourced some cool GT grips. It's beginning to take shape:
Then some tryes from Germany and a new BB as the M900 one in Niel's groupset was a 68mm shell and the zaskar needed a 73mm:
Got a LH m900 shifter and a flite saddle from Nikica. Unfortunately the shifter was broken. The philips screwdriver is pointing at the bit that was broken:
Luckily Wadsy was selling some M900 shifter spares with stripped barrel adjuster threads, so I got those stripped down Nikica's shifter and bingo, one working and fully serviced LH shifter). Weirdly i really enjoyed that process. There's great satisfaction in getting old parts like that working again.
Finally she's all together. the whole thing only took about 5 weeks from start to finish. Still gotta do something about that damn seatpost!
Ive a thing for shiney bikes, so brought the other two out for a bit of fresh air:
This is my '94 Sintesi Bromont. Bought in BikePro in Kingsheath, Birmingham and raced (badly) for 4 years before being superseded by a '98 Kona Stab (which I also still have). Being a poor student at the time the Sintesi had a mis-mash of parts, but I've since replaced those with a full M737 XT group.
My AMP has a thread somewhere on here, but here she is again. It's not really a rider as there's so much play in the linkages, but she takes pride of place in the garage and I frequently just sit and marvel at the pure engineering beauty
As usual, I couldnt have done the Zaskar without the help from some great people here on Retrobike. So to, Martin, Niels, Kurt and Nikica...cheers fellas!
