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Well the time came, my Trek fuel has cracked, and in the weekend I brazed on the guides and stops.Richie came round also and I ran the reamer down the St till the post fitted. So I was standing in the work shop as it ticked over in my head, then in a 2hr strip and build frenzy it was pretty much ready to ride!
The plan for the E type front derailleur didn't work, there was more sticking out the back of the derailleur (the parallelogram parts) than I worked out, so there wasn't enough room for it.
Damn! On to the single ring programme!Which made life pretty easy on the build up as I just bolted up my spare Balfa pulley wheel and put a Black spire tensioner under the BB cup.
Pressed my FSA pig pro that I bought especially for the job, when I thought that I brazed in the HT to high!Damn! So I needed something that had a reasonable amount of stack at the bottom. It also will support the HT being a Dh headset.
It all went together really well with no major alignment/interference isses.
Then I pushed it out the door, got on and rolled down the street. It passed the curb test and the out of the seat climb test, so all is good.
The next day I bought a 28.6mm QR collar for the post, and the next morning I rode it to and from work.
The ride is really good being a high pivot it rides real nice through the rocks here, and maintains alot of momentum through the rough.It climbed really well up Rapaki which is cool.
Only thing is it had the 190mm shock from my fuel in there and I built around the 200mm/2.25" shock so it was very low and slack! I mashed quite a few rocks with my cranks! But it railled round the turns. The rear suspension is very efficient it was "pushing" the bike forward as the fork was pushing backwards strange feeling?! I think theres a little to much air in the fork and I need to valve the shock properly.
So I'm stoked to ride it, I'll give it a few weeks make sure its all good (no more naked flames required!) and then get some color on it.Will keep you posted.Rossco.
We had a small holiday down in Wanaka last week, that gave me a change to catch up with Al and Rick and to use the lathe at Als place, so I made the tube that spaces the linkage plates apart. Turned it down to 12.40mm and then shaped the end at 45 degrees, faced it off to 100.50mm then drilled and tapped it to M8.This was number 2 as I screwed the first one up by tapping it M9 DOH!!was trying to get it done to quick!!Any ways here it is, don't get to excited!!
Its the little alloy part in the middle, pretty exciting!While I was down I also dropped in on Doug and used his HT facer and reamer to finish the HT up so I could put the PIG Pro in.
It also soaked in a bath for 36hrs to dissolve the residual flux inside the tubing before it does any permanent damage.
I have been busy the last little while, and have been quite excited so I haven't taken many photos, whoops!
So since the last post I have tacked and brazed the rear tri, cut the seat stays to length and brazed them to the drop outs, also fitted the tube between the linkage plate tubes.
Firstly I cut both the seat and chainstay ends on my tube cutter with the angle set to 5 degrees, this took a bit of setting up on the clamp with the dropouts already brazed in, I just "eyeballed" them and they seemed to turn out really well, I had to do alot of cleaning and shaping with the file though.I figured that because they bolt up to the linkage plates, and long as I got the LH and RH sides parallel with each other that I'd be golden, and they were.
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So for the set up on the chain stays I made up a dummy axle and put it in to the drop outs, checked all the angles were right on the drawing and that they were parallel, and just put the axle in the vice and brazed the tube on, easy.
It was a bit more of a fiddle to get the seat stays set up but once they were set up I just tacked them and then brazed away! I then slotted and finished them with the grinder the same as the first ones.
Had a lot more fun brazing the drop outs into the seat stays this time, amazing what some time and experiance does for your skills!
They cleaned up really well and look pretty sweet. I wasn't sure about them because they were cut for a hard tail mtb and as you can see my seat stays are on a pretty flat angle, but I worked out a nice way to have them attached and brazed them in then cut the tabs that were left sticking out the top off to finish them. It doesn't look to strange, and the finish on the disc side looks clean.
Then I proceeded to braze in the conecting tube between the to linkage plate tubes, I just ran a slip braze around here because I didn't think it needed a fillet.
I had some issues with the plugs that I silver brazed in they didn't really flow very well and I had to do all of them again (1 with brass), I may end up doing all of them in brass or welding, which ever is easier!
I'm going to start another post that will fill in the gaps between photos.
