Hi all. Hope someone can help with this puzzle. Among my collection of old bike frames and bits I have this mystery object: steel frame, 1" steerer, unicrown forks with double eyelets at the drop out, 130mm oln rear triangle with double eyelets, u braked rear, cantilever front. It has a dia compe AD990 u brake and came with suntour xcd 4050 front and rear mechs, sugino crankset, araya rims and sansin hubs. All probably original though I'm not 100% sure.
I've been told it's a Muddy Fox and it does look similar in dimensions to my Roadrunner from 1989, but is TIG welded and has fastback stays. I hear some of the 1988 MF frames were like that for one year only. But then there's the colour: I didn't think they used that green and, as it goes up the steerer tube it looks like original paint. But no sign of frame tube sticker or decals showing the make or model. The clincher should be the frame number: CR879200 stamped on the bottom bracket. (NB the u brake has stamping showing 6 B, 5 88, 4 3, so I wonder if this corroborates the 1988 theory??)
So... any help with this one would be much appreciated and help me decide what to do with it, especially after spending some hours removing a very well seized stem, which was eventually fixed by cutting it through to release the forks, then internal lengthways cuts through the alloy but not the steel stem on opposite sides of the seized stem tube , then crushing in a vice to start to break the corrosion, using penetrating fluid and bashing backwards and forwards from the top and from underneath using a long punch, hitting back and forth loosened it up - a balance of finesse and brute force that worked, eventually.
Cheers, Dave
PS, only posted once here before so hoping that the pictures come out okay!
I've been told it's a Muddy Fox and it does look similar in dimensions to my Roadrunner from 1989, but is TIG welded and has fastback stays. I hear some of the 1988 MF frames were like that for one year only. But then there's the colour: I didn't think they used that green and, as it goes up the steerer tube it looks like original paint. But no sign of frame tube sticker or decals showing the make or model. The clincher should be the frame number: CR879200 stamped on the bottom bracket. (NB the u brake has stamping showing 6 B, 5 88, 4 3, so I wonder if this corroborates the 1988 theory??)
So... any help with this one would be much appreciated and help me decide what to do with it, especially after spending some hours removing a very well seized stem, which was eventually fixed by cutting it through to release the forks, then internal lengthways cuts through the alloy but not the steel stem on opposite sides of the seized stem tube , then crushing in a vice to start to break the corrosion, using penetrating fluid and bashing backwards and forwards from the top and from underneath using a long punch, hitting back and forth loosened it up - a balance of finesse and brute force that worked, eventually.
Cheers, Dave
PS, only posted once here before so hoping that the pictures come out okay!
