It's orange but is it AN Orange? Mystery frame time

[rrrroberts]

Hi all, help needed.
This is a frame I picked up pretty cheap to run as a pub SS. Here is what I know about it.

It is old steel MTB frame that has been converted to run an eccentric BB and discs by Jeff Anderson in Rotorua (Jeffson is a legend in NZ)
It used to be green (common Orange Clockwork colour)
It has an Orange like wishbone stay arrangement
It has a 29.6mm seat tube (common in Oranges, not sure who else uses them)
It has a 1 1/8 headset
The head tube length is 110mm which is not an Orange size but it could have been shortened to help with long disc forks
Because of the work done I can not find out the serial number.
It has a chainstay bridge but I don't know if that is new or not to help handle the forces from disc brakes
The dropouts look like they might say A-Pro on them
The braze-on seat clamp is a large I.D. one for one of those allen key seat binder bolts with a tab to lock one end in
The stays are quite fat, and finish with rounded ends - not Orange like
All of the old cable stops have been removed, which is not helpful
It was painted orange and named Orange Ruffy (a delicious and endangered fish?)

I would like it to be an Orange as I've never owned one, but feel it probably isn't. They're not that common out here anyway. Avanti are made here and also used wishbone stays early on, but it feels later than that. Here are some pics

 

[hamster]

It's obviously a dedicated singlespeed frame with the eccentric bottom bracket.
I don't recall Orange ever making one.

 

[rrrroberts]

Re:

It is an old steel MTB frame that has been converted to run an eccentric BB and discs by Jeff Anderson in Rotorua (Jeffson is a legend in NZ)

 

[Retro Spud]

What’s the frame number ?

That would seal the deal on it being an Orange

 

[Retro Spud]

Forget that .... the bottom bracket was junked :facepalm:

 

[hamster]

There are a couple of things that bother me about it as an Orange:
1 Rack lugs on the wishbone: usually Orange had a single lug on the top face, not one each side
2 Cross-brace for seat stays - Orange omitted it
3 A-Pro on the dropouts - again not sure about this.
4 Seat clamp with slot at the back and QR lugs - usually a collar
5 Slightly dropped seatstays on seat tube

Orange frames did show quite a lot of difference between batches (I have a P7 with features from both 95 and 96) so being not exactly like catalogue is possible.

 

[rrrroberts]

Re:

1. Clockworks had rack lugs on the wishbone (P7 did not)
2. Cross brace could have been added with the disc brace for strength, unlikely though
3. A Pro is the definitely a pointer to it being something else (Avanti was the other option I mentioned in the post, and they did a 'Pro' line of models, though steel ones were seemingly 27.2 posts
4. Seat clamps were pre 95 on some Oranges (?), though the 29.6 seat tube probably wasn't
5. Slightly dropped seat stays doesn't seem un-Orange to me?

Overall it's feeling even less like one. I reckon the ends of the stays and the dropouts are the least Orange aspects.

Thanks to all for feedback, please feel free to keep contributing.

 

[brocklanders023]

Re:

All the early Orange frames (well, nearly all of them) were made by A-Pro. Not sure if they still were by the late 90's though and that's when they moved to wider seat tubes and 1 1/8th. My bet is that it's not Orange but happy to be proved otherwise.

 

[Frankenorange]

Re:

I could well imagine that this frame, if it was converted, may be remembered by the chap in Rotorua. I cant imagine it is a conversion that takes place that often so dare i ask the obvious....

Have you contacted Jeff Anderson?

I understand that he has been unwell so maybe he may not remember, but the Jeffson website seems current.