I told Marc I'd take a look at it...see what I could do. Well, this is what Marc brought over (I already took off the front wheel when I took the picture)...
The biggest challenge of this project was trying to find the elastomer replacements for the rear suspension. The elastomers apparently disintegrate over time. When Marc brought the bike over, the elastomers were completely gone.
Another challenge was to clean the bike. The old elastomers appeared to have "melted" in that there was sticky gooey residue all down the back side of the bike...and I mean everywhere. It took significant cleaning.
Since the bike was old and needed so much cleaning, I decided to simply disassemble the entire bike and redo it all...new grease for the bearings, re-cable it, etc...
The old tires were a bit rotten as well. Since I have a ton of spare mountain bike parts, I dug up some pretty much new tires and tubes to replace the old ones. This is what the bike looked like after a thorough cleaning...though you can see the elastomers for the suspension are still missing...
Since I knew finding the elastomers would be a challenge, I did a little research on the internet and a few emails back and forth with Jim of Suspension Fork Parts, I scored two elastomer replacements. I ordered them on the Monday after Marc brought the bike over. As luck would have it, they shouwed up today!
Here they are installed on the bike...
And with that, the restoration is complete!
Not bad at all if I say so myself...especially for only a half-day's work!
:-)
