BMXMUSEUM.com Forums

1987 Traker Rumbler / Street Heat

Completely restored Traker Rumbler / Street Heat frame with Ammaco decals and a Mongoose fork. Built by Timo "2Fresh" in Helsinki, Finland in 2006.

Quote from VintageBMX.com:

"Traker was the "house brand" of Wisconsin Cycle Supply, which used to be a large distributor in Sheboygan WI. they sold complete bikes, parts and accessories for all things cycling."


The idea behind the restoration
I found this unknwon frame with Mongoose forks from ebay that was crudely stripped with a disc sander yet overall it was in somewhat decent condition and totally restoreable.
The frame & fork auction was titled just "Old School BMX Twin Top Tube 20" Freestyle Frame+Fork" without any further info or background about it. There were assumptions about it being a Redline and Ammaco but like we all know, it's not either one of them.
First i got the Boss bars. They were brutally stripped aswell and beat up. There was all kind of stuff inside the bars like dirt sand, hay, half cut bar end and a tiny rock that wouldn't come out and was starting to drive me nuts. Eventually, i got all the "additional" stuff out after fiddling and shaking the bars like crazy by shooting in water with high pressure and so forth.

This build was special to me for two reasons. First, because it marked the 10th build in my old school freestyle bike collection and second, so far it has been my longest project of all my builds which took a year and a half because i had to start all the way from the beginning from preparation until final finishing touches.

Since there was no chance to find any Traker Rumbler or Cycle Pro Radix decals for the frame, i decided to re-label the frame to give it a new identity as English Ammaco, because the frame does have quite a few similiar characteristics. Besides, at the time this project began, i had no idea what this bike really was anyway so knowing it isn't really an Ammaco doesn't bother me at all.

When i saw the auction images i immediately noticed there was plenty of potential for a good looking build/restore, despite it's not brand name designer frame like Haro, Redline or Hutch etc. the frame looks cool, nonetheless. What's more important to me than the most desireable/popular collecting brand, is the overall looks and most importantly, the style.

All the frame & forks basically needed was some good cleaning, proper sanding (unlike what the previous owner/owner's had done) and a quality powdercoat. Closer investigation revealed that there had been at least five layers of rattle can paint in the bike's history. What seemed like the original color (light pink) there was also gray primer, gloss black, gloss blue and red so the paint job had been really one of a kind mess. A funny detail was that the previous owner had left the chrome plated headset cups on and sanded them aswell.

After carefully thinking it thru few times I decided to go with all-white powdercoat for the f&f cause you could combine just about any other color with it with good looking results. I also had to figure out which color parts were available easy enough and within a reasonable budget. So with the red-white-blue Ammaco decals in mind i decided to go all white with some red parts with blue & chrome high lights. After some searching i ended up taking the parts to a local powdercoat company called Lainisalo OY which was located nearby.

In late december 2006/early january 2007 the bike was updated with UNI wheel covers. Here's the story:

"The bike that i brutally titled as "Ammaco Freestyler" has now UNI wheel covers on. Assembling them has been on my to do -list but it took me a while to make it happen. Now they're finally on and all decorated or should i say "customized" with red and blue vinyl decal sheets and gray electrical tape to add some color and to match the overall color theme instead of just adding stock blank discs.
I tried my best in creating something very 80's, very graphic yet simple and here is the result. It turned out looking rather athletic for obvious reasons and to me the bike now looks almost like a downhill/HPV which in it's own right is actually kind of cool thing. The touch of blue also brought more balance to the overall color pallette.

On top of that i installed one of those JB coaster brake-to-free wheel adapters cause the Bendix hub was giving me hard time every time i was pedaling. The problem was that it engaged the internal brake way too easily so i got fed up with it after almost flipping over the bars couple times because of it. I did try un-brake but then there was too much slack causing me to hit my knees on the bars. Not good.
Installing the "JB" adapter on to the rear mag was very easy. However, adding the rear wheel covers wasn't as snappy as you'd first think cause the Bendix dust caps are slightly bigger in diameter than most other hubs (for example Suntour) so i had to enlarge the holes on the covers to fit the caps thru.

UNI wheel covers seem to come with just black nuts. So, if the color combo on this bike is all white, red and blue with gray and chrome highlights, we simply can't have wheel covers with black nuts now can we? A quick visit to the local "everything plastic and rubber" -shop to get some white nut caps to hide them ugly black nuts. Another problem solved! I also got some smaller red caps for the brakes and rotor nuts cause it makes the bike look more "trick".



The most recent upgrade is the white Hutch/OGK star mags with red Haro tires. The previous red Troxel mags with Bendix coaster looked great but i wasn't completely happy with how they performed and how the overall color balance looked. Therefore with the change of the mags i now have regular freewheel and the red Haro tires compliment the wheel covers better.
The bike is really fun to ride & cruise around. Despite the somewhat "flexy" and "plastic" feel because of high rise bars with rotor and the flexy Hutch mags the bike performs great. I might dye the white Dominator Pro seat red hough and maybe change the stem to a Tioga inverted for era-correctness, but we'll see... Overall i am currently very happy with this bike.


Parts & specs:

* Frame: 1987 Traker Rumbler (with fresh white powdercoat and Ammaco decals)
* Tubing: Hi-Ten (..or tri-moly with cro-mo maintubes ..who knows. Judging by the weight of the frame it is probably full Hi-Ten)
* Serial#: DS 70473327
* Forks: 1" threaded taken from a Mongoose (Decade or Decade Pro) with Pacific Freestyle fork stand/platform around the lower bearing race seat (restored)

* Bars: Boss "Step Ladder" Freestyle bars, powdercoated (restored)

* Stem: SR/Sakae MS-422 21.1mm quill (used)

* Grips: SM Mushroom by ODI (NOS)

* Seatpost: Stylizer snake 22.2mm chromoly (NOS)

* Seat: Viscount Dominator Pro w/custom lightning decals
* Seatpost clamp: DK Freestyle clamp w/bolt-on platform dating back to '85

* Levers: ACS Tangent (manufactured by Polygon) w/locking buttons
* Front brake/pads: Dia Compe FS880, ACS Z-Pads
* Rear brake/pads: Dia Compe MX901 w/Weinmann Semi Automatic adjuster, ACS Z-Pads
* Rotor: ACS Pro Rotor
* Rotor cables upper/lower: Odyssey Slic
* Front brake cable: Odyssey Slic
* Headset: Tioga Beartrap-2
* Cranks: JM 1pc. 175mm Cro-Mo
* Pedals: Victor VDX (VP-555) 1/2" alloy body, chromoly spindle ..and like the name suggests, these are shameless Shimano DX-copies

* Sprocket: Anlun power disc, w/Tioga 44T CR-1 chainwheel 44T, Tioga fixing bolts
* Bottom bracket: Tioga "BearTrap" BB-220BT 24T
* Chain: Izumi ½ x 1/8"
* Rear sprocket: 16T Dicta freewheel
* Wheels: Hutch "star" mags by OGK (NOS) covered with NOS custom stickered UNI Olympic wheelcovers (NOS)

* Front hub: Suzue "sealed mechanism" loose bass bearings with dust caps

* Front axle: 3/8" 26Tpi
* Rear hub: Suzue "sealed mechanism" loose ball bearings with dust caps

* Rear Axle: 26 Tpi
* Front pegs: "Spinner" thread-on (NOS)

* Rear pegs: Odyssey Hollow Bullet 26T (used)
* Tires: Haro Multisurface red/skinwall 20 x 1.75 (NOS)

* Tubes: Kenda 20 x 1.75-2.125
----------------
Top tube length: 18.5"
Steering head angle: ca. 73
Seatpost angle: ca. 73
Wheelbase: 34 - 35"
Chainstay length: 14"


Previous updates:

* Fall 2007: Crucial updates in order to achieve the ultimate overall color balance. Added blue and red "BMX Action" magazine stickers on to the non-sprocket side of the wheelcovers for radical looks (Thanks so much Brian P!!!).
* Changed the top red Rotor cable housing to dark blue for better color balance and to match with the overall color theme on the wheelcovers/decals etc.
* Added custom (homemade) lightning bolt decals on to the sides of the Dominator Pro FS seat for the heck of it to resemble the looks of an Elina or whatever seat, again for better color balance cause the seat/top rear area needed some color to kill the white dominance.
* Summer 2007: replaced the Troxel Trakmaster mags with white Hutch/OGK "star" mags for better overall colour balance and therefore gave up the the use of Bendix coaster and settled for a regular 16T Dicta freewheel.
* Switched from NOS white Haro tire to NOS red Haro tires.
* White ACS Z-Pads.
* Fall 2006: JB Coaster-to-freewheel adapter (removed since because it didn't work as well as expected).


This bike was a part of the vintageBMX.com 2008 Freestyle Calendar.

Last edited by 2Fresh (2008-01-04 9:23am)