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I can't wait to see how this turns out. I have far too many of your restoration projects bookmarked wired.
It's the part I love most about this site. Again, looking forward to your work.

note...the forks and front ABS brake are not stock on a Zippo.  the Blammo and Ultra came with those on 97 (and 98?) models...and the brakes are RARE.

your builds are the reason i visit this site everyday.how do you have time for all of them.keep up the great work

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Can't wait to see the prgress of this one.....good work so far.

It's been a busy week so I didn't get a lot done.  I went back to work last night stripping and polishing parts.  My cranks came with these aluminum washer spacers which were pretty dull.  I took them right to the soft buffing wheel with a little polish.



The ones on the left are unpolished and the ones on the right were hit with the wheel.  Big difference for just a few minutes work.



My two favorite parts.  My Porkchop Power Disc and Chainring.   I thought about polishing the Power Disk to a mirror shine but didn't want to wreck the logo.  I might give it whirl later.



Another part I want to use (which won't fit) is this MX seat clamp, also from Porkchop.  No problem.  A little filing will fix that.



I'm stripping the correct set of brakes now.    I've also get to get my seatpost shining too.  I've got a chrome one that's ready to go but since I chose a pivotal seat to trim a little weight off this tank, I'm going to strip and polish this aluminum one.



Now for the exciting part!  I received my stickers from Joe this week and have been anxious to put them on.  I found it a little challenging to apply them to a partially assembled bike but it wasn't too bad.  I just took a little more time and thought everything out to avoid mistakes.

I test fit each one first and decided on several that it would be best to trim off the excess for a better fit.





This large one made me the most nervous.  I thought about mixing up a few drops of dish soap with water and misting the frame with a squirt bottle so I could slide it around.  I was too lazy to go to the trouble and just went for it.



I have a few more custom stickers to add but this is what I could finish today.  Funny story here.  As I was editing these pictures I looked closely at these last three and couldn't believe I put my fork stickers on the wrong side.  I was a little bummed and figured they were fresh and I'd just peel them up and switch them.  Then I looked closer and noticed my forks had just turned around 180°. 

Last edited by wired (2010-05-22 5:31pm)

Your bike is absolutely gorgeous. I love it. Thanks for sharing.
I like your building style as well. Great mix of old new mid.

youve got talent bro. that is friggin nice, i hope youll ride it

I should have gone to bed hours ago but I got a beer in me and started working.  Before I knew it I had worked a couple more hours on some tedious stuff.  Just stripping, filing and polishing.  I got all the paint stripped from the rear 990s and got one arm brushed, polished then finished off with Blue Magic.  I also cleaned the 990 spring covers but left them looking like brushed aluminum.

It's been a while since I've done any cannodizing but I knew I wanted a small blue accent on the brakes.  I washed and dried the caps then shot them with some Krylon X-Metals blue.



Here is the arm I finished and the cap sitting on top of it.  I also did a little more filing on my seat clamp.  It almost fits.  I added it to the pic below so you could see how close the X-Metals blue is to Porkchop's seat clamp.



Not much to show for two hours of work but it is progressing.  And yes spitf1re, I will be riding this.

Wow very nice work on this. Love it!

spitf1re wrote:

now hurry up and finish this

Believe me, I'm trying!   I squeezed in a few more hours today and made some progress then hit a road block.  I need an expert opinion at the end of this post.

I started with the 990s and noticed some rust on the rear posts.



I took some 0000 steel wool to them.  Not all of the dust is from this post.  I think some fell out of the steel wool which I must have used before.



Here they are smooth and rust free.



I also noticed some crud inside each of the brake arm holes so I just pulled a rag through and spun them around a few times to clean them out.



Before mounting them I wiped a little Phil Wood grease on the posts and dabbed a little at the top of each threaded hole.  As a piece of reference information the silver spring goes on the left arm and the gold spring goes on the right.



I used my buffing wheel to polish up each hex mounting bolt and the cable hanger nut, bolt and washer.  I slid the caps on then tightened the bolts almost all the way in.



A few posts ago I showed a pic of the seatpost with paint stripper applied.  Well after 2-3 attempts it didn't do a thing.  Must be anodized.  I broke out a small plastic bin, my rubber gloves and some drano crystals.



I removed the post from the water and dumped about half a cup of crystals into the water then stirred them around with my glove until they were dissolved.



It took about ten minutes before I could rub the post with my glove and start to see the anno coming off.



I got a soft brass wire brush and gently scrubbed the black areas until it all came off.



These next two pics are out of sequence as far as progress but wanted to show the steps how they should be performed.  I sanded the post with some 600 grit sandpaper to knock down the little machined rings that went around the post from top to bottom.  Then I hit the post with a rigid buffing wheel (note all the stitching lines on the side of the wheel) and some letter D buffing compound.



I wiped the post with a rag to remove all the leftover compound.  I switched to a soft buffing wheel (notice there are less rings of stitching on the side of the wheel) and some letter H polishing compound.



I spent about two full hours on this post alone.  The final step before mounting it was to apply some Blue Magic metal polish with red label Charmin toilet paper.  This post now matches the chrome of the frame.



I've had this set of silver Arayas with Haro hubs sitting around for at least nine months (so long I actually can't remember where I got them).  I set the rear wheel in and added a chain (from Porkchop).  I was ready to tighten them down when I realized what I thought were 14mm axles weren't.  The 14mm nuts slide right over them and 3/8" were way to small.



Haro experts, what do I have here?  13mm?  I was forced to stop here and will be calling a few bike shops tomorrow...

where in colorado are you? i have a bro in law in co springs. ive taken my mtn bike up there a few times. co is gorgeous