Silverfish 1987 Mountain Klein

[Silverfish]

Tyres sorted
Think I will run with Farmer John’s.
I have a NOS pair of Timbuk II’s that could also work, but the tractor tread on the FJ’s.plus they are a little bit wider.
Tyres were VGC, not NOS, but they’ve cleaned up a treat

Who knew I’d have to drill the bloody rims for schraeder tho I figured 40 year old RM25’s would be manufactured for regular tubes ‍♂

 

[Der Kleiner Panzer]

Seat tube diameter is definitely 27.2.
26.8 flopped about, as did 27.0.
Brochure spec 27.4 was far too tight.
27.2 fits perfect

I'm really late to the party on this one but can confirm that early Mountain Kleins had a 27.4 mm seat post and later ones a 27.2. The change was made somewhere around frame #600 - #800.

 

[manuelschafer]

I'm pretty sure there is no such thing as an endless clamp M700 front mech. It certainly never existed in any Shimano catalogue that I can see - which means god knows how that photo above came to be. Maybe it is a cobbled together Deerhead/M730/M735 abomination?

It's kinda thrown my build now.
We're pretty sure the bike is an 87 and not an 85 like first thought.
Having a mix of Deerhead and Suntour parts will mess with my OCD. As will mounting a later gen front mech. Plus the roller cams are Suntour.

So if it's an 87, I might just run with 87 6 speed XT - I have most of that kicking around and I think an M730 31.8 will be a much easier find - and I can swap out the Suntour roller cams for XT U brakes. Tho I don't have many fond memories of U brakes, they were always shit!!!

Gonna be a slow burn this one. Will look at getting the frame repainted and source the parts whilst I wait...

also late to see this,
but as the story goes ...
.. those early endless bands were only offered by shimano on their z series line + officially inofficial there was a 600 fd with band type but super rare..

spoke with the seller of your pictured m700 (non alpine) fd and its unlikely to be cobbled together by any other than shimano themselves lol
Cunningham also collected early endless clamps and mounted them to m700 alpine series fd´s But Charlie did as much massaging to various other types of the big drivetrain names of front gear shifting then

 

[Silverfish]

Still patiently awaiting the frame to come back.
But managed to source a Suntour seat binder

I need to refresh my memory but pretty sure I now have everything needed to finish this build. Except a frame and fork

 

[Der Kleiner Panzer]

It took about seven months to get my Mountain Klein back from the painter but it was worth the wait!! The good painters have a backlog.

 

[Silverfish]

It took about seven months to get my Mountain Klein back from the painter but it was worth the wait!! The good painters have a backlog.

View attachment 898311

stunning

Any pics of the complete bike yet?

 

[Der Kleiner Panzer]

Not quite complete, but very close. This is Mountain Klein #120


“Before” pic


The “Very Fast Red” / Yellow paint scheme is factory original to the bike. There are a handful of Mountain Klein‘s painted like this. Here is a pic from a period article.

 

[Silverfish]

@Der Kleiner Panzer looks awesome.
I think I'm going to stick with cherry red and chromed fork. Mine is a later one than yours.

 

[Der Kleiner Panzer]

I also have #558 which is mostly original

 

[Silverfish]

bloody hell - you're setting the bar higher for me every post