Kona Kilauea 1996 Restored

[anhaslett]

Firstly that you to the contributors and the site for inspiring me to do this!

So I finally after a couple of years thinking about it and a few secrets kept from wifey - finished the upgrade and restore of my beloved ex-racer, the Kona Kilauea 1996. It was never the best bike out there, but when I got it at 18 it was the best I could afford and it carried me some miles both racing and recreation.

So here are some pictures of the kona having a new breath of life. Some of the bits are original, some are modern, but all in all what I have now is a sweet trail bike that is in my mind as nice as anything that i could have bought new yet features a lovely columbus steel frame

The frame had a tiny crack on the rear brake posts - had been there for 10 years and never got worse, but I fancied a disk upgrade so I had Jeff from Kiwi Bikes in Rotorua, NZ do some work: http://www.kiwibikes.co.nz/

--The project two forks got a threadless steerer conversion
--Also disk mounts
--Rear disk mount also added
--Single speed Jeff asked - No!
--Also cable routing mounts added for the full length hydraulic cables

Following the frame work, off to Pro Coat in East Tamaki, Auckland, NZ (http://www.procoat.co.nz) for I think three coats of powder. White, then the stickers added. Then pearl over the top, then finally clear. Yes, you can powder coat over stickers! Result is exactly what I had hoped, white pearl with clear coat. Never dreamed this could be done with powder but hey!

Hope it inspires a few more to do the "re-do" rather than the "buy new".

Happy trails!

Ainsley

All the pics are here: https://skydrive.live.com/#cid=E0DE7EAD2A3F3EAE&id=E0DE7EAD2A3F3EAE!3842

 

[Midorimage]

Looking nice... do you have any before pictures?? I'd like to see what you started with.

 

[anhaslett]

Looking nice... do you have any before pictures?? I'd like to see what you started with.

Good point - i do have this one from maybe two years ago when i put cruiser tires on it for commuting...

 

[Gruff]

Nice bike

Can i ask where you got the Kona chainstay protectors from?

 

[Grockel]

Nice bike but I must admit short stems and riser bars send me into a cold sweat.

 

[Kona-Ian]

Nice job there

 

[We_are_Stevo]

Nice bike; you could put it in a showroom and the average punter would never know it's getting on for 20 years old!

 

[Anthony]

I tend to agree with your photo caption, where it says "Front and rear risks and new cable routing added"!

The rear risk should be ok as the restorer has added a brace, but I would think the P2 was certainly a risk. When Kona modified the design for a disc tab, they made it a much more heavy duty fork. I'm not sure they ever had a butted version for discs, certainly not for the years I am aware of. Your P2 is quite thin metal down near the dropouts and it will have been weakened further by the new welding/brazing. I wouldn't use it. Why not fit a nice 80mm suspension fork to go with your nice bar/stem combo? There are SIDs around in white.

I don't think you can have a pearlescent finish over the decals. The pearlescent element is surely granules in the top powder coat - normally powder is applied in one coat only, so perhaps multiple coats is the way to achieve this finish? Then they might have done a clear coat over the decals. The decals look quite good incidentally, did you have them made specially?

 

[merckx]

wow, that's amazing! great kiwi fabrication and technical skills there with the frame work and painting also. congrats

 

[anhaslett]

Nice bike

Can i ask where you got the Kona chainstay protectors from?

All the Kona decals from here: http://www.graphicshack.co.uk/product/R ... _Kit_rkk95 very helpful dude

Columbus stickers came off a guy ernie on this forum

A