The bike I should be riding...89 Marin OAP conversion....finished!

[Tootyred]

Mechs are a mess! Not pretty, lots of scrapes and scratches. But ideal for a budget build as rock bottom price.

The first thing is to get them into bits. Unlike m700, there is little you can do to strip a m732 front mech, the pins dont easily come out, so you have to work around it a bit.

First job is is pull it apart and wash / degreaser the parts. Try to get as much off on a rag as you can, as in these times of austerity, there is no point in wasting good degreaser on grease that can be wiped off!

Stupidly, i forgot to take a photo, but lets just say they were £24 posted the pair.....so not in the best order to say the least.

 

[Tootyred]

Next i tend to deal with the paint work on the body.....sounds wrong, as surely it makes more sense to do the alloy first.....well yes, but if the paint cant be saved, why waste lots of time on the alloy, which is more time consuming.

The lettering i mask with modlers bubble mask, then spray in the sanded back damaged areas. Really this is a judgement call depends on how bad the paint is, but ive gone from full spray and lacquer to feathering in skuffs. You can see the damage in the first picture, this is taken after cleaning the paint and using 1200 grit over the paint surface. The alloy has also been filed.

Once done i mask that area up and then deal with the damaged alloy.

First to get out the worst of the Damage out with a file, then work down from 240, 400, 600 wet and dry. At that point it goes onto the polisher. Same on the front.

So.....with a bit of elbow grease, here's your finished body.

 

[Tootyred]

Final stage is reassembly...

Parts are all clean.....

Put it back the reverse of the way it came apart! One thing to note is that this generation has 2 spring setting holes. Its worth checking before taking apart how good the spring is, if its a bit poor, moving to the tighter wound hole will help get a bit more life from it.

So here they are finished.

Ok, not perfect, but for £24 im really not complaining......
Why not pull an old mech out the drawer and have a crack at bringing it back to life.

 

[slackboy]

good work. Who do you use for cerakote?

 

[Graham_hkr]

Good work. I have a rear mech to do shorty, do you find it easier to finish at 600 then polish? I was thinking of finishing at 250 and then using the appropriate buffing compounds to finish!

 

[Tootyred]

I go to 600, more to aid shaping. Also, you got to be pretty aggressive to polish out 240 marks.....especially when trying to avoid graphics etc.

Lots of people do go straight from 240 all the same....

As for cerakote, its done by an old mate of mine. You really need batches of stuff or its just not economic....by the time you have 2 sets of postage and a minimum £50 fee......he's actually a gunsmith.....which is where cerakote comes from originally as its a balistic coating.

If you van find a local guy and make friends, its probably far cheaper!

 

[Tootyred]

Fitted the mechs onto the frame.......easy.

 

[Tootyred]

Whats not so easy is resolving the issues caused by being...

A. Stupidly tall 6'4"....was taller, but now shrinking!
B. Bad back so can't bend as well.

To illustrate this issue, here's a photo of the bike side on. The temporary saddle is set to where i need it. Also remember this frame is a garden gate with a 180mm headtube!

To get the bar grip area level with the seat, which is where i need it for long trips, is a 187mm difference to make up from the top of the headset. At this point, if your Tom Cruise height......think yourself lucky for once.

 

[Tootyred]

So, lets try a few options. First the standard 1" marin stem out of the donor pine mountain. This is set at full available height with flat bars.

Drop is still 57mm......no dice.

 

[Tootyred]

Now a nitto dirt drop mt10.......

This set so the bars are level......hurrah!

This was going to be my option, but......it created another issue.....the nature of these stems means that even though this is the longer reach version......its too short for my long arms.

Normally i have about 600mm between nose of saddle ( saddle set my normal 75mm back from crank centre) and centre of grip on a 600mm ish bar.

This set up is now 550mm.....its 2" too short!

So, to solve it i either need a bigger reach tall stem.....150mm long x 160mm tall.....unlikely.....

Or, a stem with a bit of rise and 2" riser bars to take up the slack!

Lets work on that.

I blame my lanky parents!