In the glorious days when I was racing local DH events on my Intense Uzzi SL I had a friend who had a Santa Cruz Tazmon imported from the US and even if I had a lot of fun with my Uzzi for many years (it's brothers is always on the workbench here...) I've always keep an eye on Santa Cruz bikes.
As the Tazmon is clearly hard to find I've been trying to find for a while an early Heckler frame but often on US fleaBay with silly shipping charges (and customs fees) or in bad condition.
And some weeks ago I've find one in UK at a correct price and condition so I put my finger on the Order button... Ok it's not a first generation but a cool 97' so with a clean build it'll do the trick ...
As I could see on my Boulder Defiant build, old suspension frames always have surprises in store... On this one the rear bolt of the shock was bent and my only solution to disassemble the frame was to cut the bushings...
Not a big problem at all, with the correct measures and a good machinist...
Surprise #2 was when once frame disassembled I wanted to strip the old paint on the rear triangle as my plan is to send the front for powder coating and polish myself the rear... I think that the previous owner had an old stash of black paint and applied it with a big brush... At least 0.8mm thickness of a flexy sticky paint !!
Take a look...
Even if it was a pain to remove it I'm close to the end, so stay tuned...
As the Tazmon is clearly hard to find I've been trying to find for a while an early Heckler frame but often on US fleaBay with silly shipping charges (and customs fees) or in bad condition.
And some weeks ago I've find one in UK at a correct price and condition so I put my finger on the Order button... Ok it's not a first generation but a cool 97' so with a clean build it'll do the trick ...
As I could see on my Boulder Defiant build, old suspension frames always have surprises in store... On this one the rear bolt of the shock was bent and my only solution to disassemble the frame was to cut the bushings...
Not a big problem at all, with the correct measures and a good machinist...
Surprise #2 was when once frame disassembled I wanted to strip the old paint on the rear triangle as my plan is to send the front for powder coating and polish myself the rear... I think that the previous owner had an old stash of black paint and applied it with a big brush... At least 0.8mm thickness of a flexy sticky paint !!
Take a look...
Even if it was a pain to remove it I'm close to the end, so stay tuned...
