Kona Kilauea 1993

Canuckbiker

BoTM Winner
Brodie Fan
I’d like to share another bike from my collection after just finished a major update. Found in a dumpster in 2019 (just like my Bianchi) in this sorry state:
038 - Kona Kilauea 1993 01.jpg
Pretty amazing find for a free bike. First below pictures are of my first attempt at a paint refurbish. The decals were in decent shape so I masked them all and found a rattle can color sort of close (was difficult to tell as the paint had faded so much). I replaced a few parts including the lower spec Sugino Fuse 500 crankset with the higher spec Sugino XP Mighty Kona was using this year for the Explosif and up. I had always wanted this crank since BITD, reminds me of my favorite road crank vintage Campy C-Record. The old school Dura-Ace RD was picked up for $20 due to it being so scratched up, a lot of elbow grease later and on it went! I’m using the cable anchor trick which lets it index shift 7-speed Shimano.

Overall a fantastic vintage steel MTB, I bit larger than I normally ride but I love the fit, it rides a bit longer than some of my others.

A few years later I’ve gotten a lot better with the rattle can. I had never even bothered with a clearcoat on the original paint refurbish, not even metallic paint.

One day I stumbled across a full decals set, like everything, on eBay even including the Prestige Concept tubing decal. I decided it was time my Kona got a more proper paint job. I was tempted to put on the “Race Light” seat tube decal but noticed this was only on the euro versions, not the north American ones. May still add it later. I think I found a good color match this time after scouring the interweb for old photos trying to match the original color. Decided to remove the rear rack eyelets for the racer/cleaner look.

It was a lot of work to re-do the whole frame and fork but well worth it for this amazing piece of MTB history. I love my Kona 😁

1st Paint Job
038 - Kona Kilauea 1993 04.jpg
20210920_235611619_iOS.jpg

New and improved Paint & Decals:

20220317_004445379_iOS.jpg
20220317_004456394_iOS.jpg
20220317_004504547_iOS.jpg
20220317_004522236_iOS.jpg
20220317_004539097_iOS.jpg
 
I’d like to share another bike from my collection after just finished a major update. Found in a dumpster in 2019 (just like my Bianchi) in this sorry state:
View attachment 614152
Pretty amazing find for a free bike. First below pictures are of my first attempt at a paint refurbish. The decals were in decent shape so I masked them all and found a rattle can color sort of close (was difficult to tell as the paint had faded so much). I replaced a few parts including the lower spec Sugino Fuse 500 crankset with the higher spec Sugino XP Mighty Kona was using this year for the Explosif and up. I had always wanted this crank since BITD, reminds me of my favorite road crank vintage Campy C-Record. The old school Dura-Ace RD was picked up for $20 due to it being so scratched up, a lot of elbow grease later and on it went! I’m using the cable anchor trick which lets it index shift 7-speed Shimano.

Overall a fantastic vintage steel MTB, I bit larger than I normally ride but I love the fit, it rides a bit longer than some of my others.

A few years later I’ve gotten a lot better with the rattle can. I had never even bothered with a clearcoat on the original paint refurbish, not even metallic paint.

One day I stumbled across a full decals set, like everything, on eBay even including the Prestige Concept tubing decal. I decided it was time my Kona got a more proper paint job. I was tempted to put on the “Race Light” seat tube decal but noticed this was only on the euro versions, not the north American ones. May still add it later. I think I found a good color match this time after scouring the interweb for old photos trying to match the original color. Decided to remove the rear rack eyelets for the racer/cleaner look.

It was a lot of work to re-do the whole frame and fork but well worth it for this amazing piece of MTB history. I love my Kona 😁

1st Paint Job
View attachment 614154
View attachment 614155

New and improved Paint & Decals:

View attachment 614156
View attachment 614158
View attachment 614160
View attachment 614162
View attachment 614163
Hi,

Nice kona, which colours did you use?
Need to respray mine now. 😊
 
Only in BC does a Kila Kona get tossed. I gotta get into some of those dumpsters! Great save, @Canuckbiker
Technically the dumpser in question is in Birch Bay Washington state. I have a summer trailer there. There's close to 800 trailers and many bikes are tossed in the bin every year. Most are department store bikes too far gone but I have saved a couple dozen worthy bikes over the years including a couple sweet 80s BMXs which have been kept. Most given away to friends and family, 2019 was the year this Kona and my Bianchi ended up there, pretty sweet finds.
I've missed my dumpster diving these last couple pandemic years but looks very promising we get to go back next month :LOL:
 
Classic and great riding frame, the original paint does not look that bad tbh.
 
  • Like
Reactions: R-V
Back
Top