Muddy Fox Monarch Pro (weird seatpost issue)

[recup]

Hi,

I bought a Muddy Fox Monarch Pro (from around 1993 I guess) wich has a decal like this on the seat tube:

.

I searched online for a Tange catalogue with information about this tubeset but couldn't find any.

I found this: http://www.equusbicycle.com/bike/tange/ ... at1997.pdf but the specific decal isn't in it. Can someone point me to information about this specific tube set?

I also couldn't find a catalogue from Muddy Fox with this bike in it.

One reason I want to know more about the tube set is that I don't know which seatpost should fit this bike. It seems like it's 26.6 but wouldn't that suggest a lower end seat tube (with thicker walls)? Or could it be that some tubes in this frame are Tange but the seatpost is a cheaper one? The rest of the bike is all high end (full XT, XTR, Araya RM-400 Pro XC) and everything in almost NOS state. The Panaracer tires have still the 'hairs' on it. I tried a 26.6 seatpost and it goes in very easily (maybe too easy!) for the first 15 cm but after that it feels like the seat tube is getting narrower and there's a lot of resistance. The (28.6mm) seat tube is very clean inside (no dents as well) and the post looks ok as well. Maybe the seat tube should be reamed?

I made some pictures but sadly didn't find a way to add them to my gallery. I found pictures of the same frame online: http://fotos.mtb-news.de/p/1051194.

Thanks for any information about this tube set (Tange Ultimate Ultralight Prestige) or this bike!

 

[Retro junkie]

Re:

hi
my orange prestige ultralight has the remains of the exact same decal in your pic. now my orange takes a 26.8 seat tube which fits perfect. cant understand why youre post gets stuck at 15cm although i did notice the last cable butt on your seat post tube is at about 15 cm is there any bulging inside the tube from where this is welded on

 

[recup]

Re:

Hi,

Thanks for the information! I think a 26.8 mm would indeed fit the first 15cm in. And you are right, the seatpost starts to feel resistance at the point where the cablestop is brazed on. From the outside there is no noticible distortion at that point, but it's hard to measure... I tried to put a 26.4 seatpost in and even with that seatpost I feel some resistance at the height of the cablestop although not that much. I guess it would be dangerous to ream the seattube out to 26.6 or 26.8 mm? The walls are already really thin if the seattube is Tange Ultralight. When I use a flashlight to look inside the seattube it looks really clean and I can't see any distortion with the naked eye.

Here are some pictures of the bike:







The paint inside the seattube is still partly there. Could this be an indication the seattube never got reamed after welding?

This is the way I bought the bike, it seems that there always have been issues with the seatpost:



Any ideas on how to solve this issue? I would prefer to not use any shims.

Thanks in advance...

 

[mechagouki]

Re: Muddy Fox Monarch Pro (1993?)

Nice bike! I have a 1996, think it has a different tubeset though, no seat post issues.

 

[recup]

Re:

Thx,

Some more pictures...

 

[mechagouki]

Re: Muddy Fox Monarch Pro (1993?)

Great build!