[htrdoug]

Yea,don't run a spring w/o any preload,didn't know,must be a fairly stiff spring? Anyway,just have your present shock shortened. I used to run extra sag in my Stinky's to get the geometry good but the spring was soft enough to require plenty of preload even at 40% sag,It was 2004,static head angles were pretty steep on "freeride" bikes.

 

[Jm_]

I remember making 3/4" (20mm) internal spacers on my old Monster T so I could run it as an interim/backup fork with modern axle-to-crown on my bike a few years back. With the dynamic bushing, I wasn't worried about the overlap.

 

[Sandwich]

ohhh, so you lengthened the damper, sort of? made the stanchions sit further out of the lowers? Just trying to wrap my head around what you did.

 

[demonprec]

ohhh, so you lengthened the damper, sort of? made the stanchions sit further out of the lowers? Just trying to wrap my head around what you did.

back in the day when the Monster 1st hit the scene there was a big tire rage , Nokian had the 3" Gazzaloti and Michelin tire the 2.8" these tire would hit the lower crown as the fork was designed around a 2.4/2.5 tire , a cure for this was to put a spacer in the bottom of the lower fork this increased the axle to lower crown clearance , Marz built a kit as well that included a different arch for mud clearance with the big tires

 

[Jm_]

I lengthened the damper rods, although it didn't net any more travel. I simply added a coupler to the bottom of the damper rod *that's where the 20mm or so comes from*, then got some threaded rod the same size and thread pitch as the damper threads, sawed off an appropriate amount of the threaded rod to be left with just the size I needed (necessary for attaching to the footnut) and then joined the coupler and threaded rod. Make sure to chamfer/round the threaded ends so the footnuts will screw on easy. Made it as tight as I could and used some red locktite or epoxy or something in there to help ensure it held (tricky to tighten). Then attached this to the fork damper rod (easy to tighten using coupler) and then put it back together like normal.

Kinda like what's explained above. I did it first back in the day with my Stratos MX6 to get more clamping area for the crown so it'd work with my enormous headtube K2 I think (smooth stanchions with no taper).

Again, the whole point with the Monster was just to have a viable back-up fork and have semi-normal geometry at the same time. It worked just fine, but especially due to the dynamic bushing IMO. The end of the stanchion tube has a bushing fitted to it, that means that as the fork progresses through the travel, the bushing is further and further from the static bushing, which means that it gets much stiffer as it goes through the travel (kind of like how they claim is the case for an inverted fork, except unless it also has a dynamic bushing, like the shiver SC, it's not seeing anywhere near the benefit that it could be seeing in this way).

 

[Tomasis]

cool project! it reminds me that I can do something with old norco 2002 dh team that I still have. Very different from Sunday, I suppose (FSR Horst design). At 6" setting from 8" I get 65 ha and about abit above 14". Itde be interesting if links can be modified due HT is 1/1.8" anyway.

 

[sbabuser]

+1 on the Loveseat.
Although if it were me, I'd just make due with a decent 6" bike that weighs 15 lbs less. Oh wait, that is what I'm doing.
Or wait around for one of those $60 Sunday frames to surface...

 

[boogenman]

Nice score for $300 I hope you can get the stuff you need for the fork.

I also scrapped my DH bike but for stupid work schedule issues.

How do you possibly have a kid on the way? That's one of those things where it is yes or no.

 

[Jim Mac]

I no longer have das barZ & stem (on said klunker wife bike), but found a 70mm Diablus stem for 31.8 and have some old Kona barz from '04 in 31.8 - all yours for a mere pittance if you want it. E13 chain guide was from 2007, just missing cog.

 

[Sandwich]

+1 on the Loveseat.
Although if it were me, I'd just make due with a decent 6" bike that weighs 15 lbs less. Oh wait, that is what I'm doing.
Or wait around for one of those $60 Sunday frames to surface...

sure...but if I want to ride someplace non-dh, like highland, I'd probably rather take my trailbike, which is in pretty good shape. I really like riding DH, like real DH, not buff trails with BMX jumps every five feet....which isn't as much fun on a six inch bike. If you find a $60 sunday frame, buy it...then spend $200 on replacement linkages and another on custom shock tunes....then limit your shock selection to basically one shock. I've been there, if you can afford to get the right shock and tune, totally worth it.

Nice score for $300 I hope you can get the stuff you need for the fork.

I also scrapped my DH bike but for stupid work schedule issues.

How do you possibly have a kid on the way? That's one of those things where it is yes or no.

wife and I might start working on one. So...not yet, but maybe?

I no longer have das barZ & stem (on said klunker wife bike), but found a 70mm Diablus stem for 31.8 and have some old Kona barz from '04 in 31.8 - all yours for a mere pittance if you want it. E13 chain guide was from 2007, just missing cog.

could you send me photos of the guide? I think the stem is going to be too long for what I want to do...

 

[Sandwich]

Few updates:

The saddle is a Selle san Marco raceday. Arguably the least comfortable saddle of all time. I bought it for $50 from an LBS because I'm a retrogrouch and it was blue. Hurt my butt worse than a tapered steerer on a double crown fork, so into the parts bin it went. Turns out the ultra-narrow profile and long sides make it a great DH saddle.

Pedals are my HTs that were gifted to me by woody via the taiwan trade show a few years ago.

Despite the blurry picture, if you squint right you can see the lightly modified box guide. I think the chain will skip out the upper part of the guide if it really wants to, and the bash might be a bit small, but it's a start.

I also modified the stickers to more accurately reflect my riding ability.

I dropped the top crown as much as I thought was reasonable, and swapped the 20mm spacer under it with a 5mm spacer so I still have some room between the two crowns. The hose clamp is my fix for the cracks, and it has worked for a few test rides with no weeping. $3 and done...

Outside of the geometry, the next major thing might be this guy here. Like most rock legends, it's not quite straight (even after tweaking with a long wrench), and the shifter is split at the clamp. I have parts to fix it in the bin.

More pressing is probably what I intend on doing with these...

 

[yd35]

More pressing is probably what I intend on doing with these...

Are those dong donuts?

 

[4130biker]

I also modified the stickers to more accurately reflect my riding ability.

Bwahaha! Hilarious you spent time customizing the sticker! Are those K9 cups, btw?

 

[Sandwich]

Nope, angleset. I've...got...a...plan....

 

[Jim Mac]

Nope, angleset. I've...got...a...plan....

Does it look like this?

 

[Sandwich]

Little more like this:

 

[rockofullr]

I'm curious how this beast will clock in compared to your...

hooked up trail bike

I would think that times on a top of the line 6in travel bike would be similar on everything but the roughest tracks.

 

[Sandwich]

I'm curious how this beast will clock in compared to your...

I would think that times on a top of the line 6in travel bike would be similar on everything but the roughest tracks.

Well, it's not a top of the line 6" trail bike. It's a mid-line 4" travel trail bike. I think it's capable of handling highland and lower burke mountain, as parts of those are glorified BMX tracks. It's the Plattekill/Diablo/Mount Snow/Attitash/Jiminy trips that will kill my 28lb trail bike, which is why I want this. My trailbike works really really well on trails, it's robust and reliable (thanks shimano disk brakes+drivetrain) but it's no 8" travel monster.

I know this is the DH forum, but my trailbike is just that...a bike to ride trails on. It is not a glorified DH bike that you can just barely pedal to the top of your epic 3000' local system and completely shred on the way down...we don't really have that here.

 

[Sandwich]

gotcha.

while the MAG's were likely worth playing with, i would strongly suggest against spending any money outside tossing a bleed on the el caminos and seeing if they will work better.

hey, I have the opportunity to trade my broken 888 for a pair of hayes nines. Worth it? I could probably turn around and sell off the caminos for $50... I didn't mind my mags, though they didn't have the power that my saints did, they were relatively fade-free and fine on non-plattekill trails.

I did take the caminos for a test run in the yard, and even two-fingering was...questionable.

 

[4130biker]

hey, I have the opportunity to trade my broken 888 for a pair of hayes nines. Worth it? I could probably turn around and sell off the caminos for $50... I didn't mind my mags, though they didn't have the power that my saints did, they were relatively fade-free and fine on non-plattekill trails.

I did take the caminos for a test run in the yard, and even two-fingering was...questionable.

I rode 9's for a long time, and was always fairly happy with them, until it came time to get them bled right. That was a pain, and the backing off lever throw adjustment was annoying (loc tite could fix it), but they had decent power. Maybe not modulation, but it'll stop ya.

I'd look at if they need new pads/rotors/bleed- are you going to be spending a lot to get mediocre brakes running again?

If so I'd say it's not worth it, but if they're dialed, it might be worth a shot.
I'd wait for some older shimanos to come around and jump on those.

 

[Sandwich]

Honestly, they're a "WSD" model which it seems may have been designed around a shorter reach for smaller hands. I'm fine with that because most hayes brakes are designed around people with Shaq hands. Not sure what pads they come with, but I would straight up swap my caminbros for the hayes and leave the current rotors and mounts.

I know that I should just cough up the dough for SLXs, but this gives me an opportunity to ditch my broken 888 and pick up brakes that may work....then possibly sell the caminos later.

 

[Electric_City]

My buddy wants to get rid of a 2007 888rc2x that he bought on our trip to SS. I know this fork has less than 5days on it. I think he wants $250. Let me know. Ttyl, EC

 

[Steve M]

hey, I have the opportunity to trade my broken 888 for a pair of hayes nines. Worth it? I could probably turn around and sell off the caminos for $50... I didn't mind my mags, though they didn't have the power that my saints did, they were relatively fade-free and fine on non-plattekill trails.

I did take the caminos for a test run in the yard, and even two-fingering was...questionable.

Hayes 9s are the 2nd most unreliable brake ever made. The most unreliable was the El Camino... ditch em in favour of anything else whatsoever. You can get Elixir 1s for <$100/end brand new, or CRC is having a huge sale on brakes right now. http://www.chainreactioncycles.com/Models.aspx?ModelID=87344 for example - not the most powerful brake ever, but with an 8" rotor they're decent enough.

 

[Horror Business]

Hayes 9s are the 2nd most unreliable brake ever made. The most unreliable was the El Camino... ditch em in favour of anything else whatsoever. You can get Elixir 1s for <$100/end brand new, or CRC is having a huge sale on brakes right now. http://www.chainreactioncycles.com/Models.aspx?ModelID=87344 for example - not the most powerful brake ever, but with an 8" rotor they're decent enough.

Steve M's opinion is absolutely the popular one, but I have ridden Hayes 9's on multiple bikes for years and years adn I find them to be quite reliable.

 

[Sandwich]

Hayes 9s are the 2nd most unreliable brake ever made.

Steve M's opinion is absolutely the popular one, but I have ridden Hayes 9's on multiple bikes for years and years adn I find them to be quite reliable.

Ok, so I can get Stroker Rydes for $50 locally, nines for $65/fork trade, or SLX for $180. Any money I save here can go towards a 888 CR, which would be nice....though I guess I could stick with the monster and run SLX instead.

 

[Steve M]

SLX if you like having brakes, otherwise save time, money and weight and just go brakeless. The Hayes Primes are not bad, but everything Hayes have made between them and the old Mags is not worth considering. The Rydes have far too many issues with the lever and master cylinder, the oil in the 9s is held in with a plastic plug that falls out now and then, leaving you with no brakes whatsoever, the circlips in the 9's levers rip out, the levers develop heaps of play etc etc.

 

[Udi]

Why not some cheaper Shimano brakes and the 888 CR? There are plenty of cheap ones on CRC at the moment.

 

[Jim Mac]

Maybe it's a function of my age, kids and general guarded use of my dwindling free time, but this project is beginning to sound like my 1st car and the cadre of issues that I inherited with it (but hey, it had a cassette player!):

 

[JRogers]

I agree with others not to go for the Hayes 9s. I had some a while ago and they were fine, but almost anything else made in the last few years performs better and has better ergonomics. Cheap Shimano, Elixirs or even Juicys would probably be a better choice and wouldn't cost much.

 

[Sandwich]

Okay, back to the drawing board. Looks like my uber-cheap 888 option is gone, so it may be brakes and keeping the monster going...that might not be so bad.

 

[phill1]

That was a fun bike. I rode for ADR backin 04 and 05. That is an 05 Kaos (im pretty sure that was my old frame) There is not many of those out there. Send me your address I have a bran new still in the package jersey for ya.

 

[Electric_City]

888 is still for sale if you want. Black stanchions and crowns, gun metal grey lowers. $250 includes extra set of marz seals.

 

[Sandwich]

I'll think about it.

My plan is to stick with the monster since I can extend it a bit and get more normal geometry. Plus, SLX brakes new @ 180 are really hard to argue with, especially compared to a pair of mags or something similar @ $80 for half-assed....and having legit brakes is more important to me than a slightly better fork.

 

[sbabuser]

I'd go with the $250 888 and drag my feet to slow down. I was so sad when I realized that I sold a perfectly working '06 rc2x for a craptastic '07 ATA...

 

[Sandwich]

So here's my evil plan. I call it the "finangleset".

I previously purchased an angleset for another bike which I have since sold...but since nobody wants anything besides -60000000* head angles, nobody ever wants the spare cups. I had a -1 and -0.5* left over. I searched on pinkbike and found somebody else with the same issue, so I snagged his -1* cup for $10. The next step was the gimbals, which I had lined up for $17 each, but dragged my feet and missed out. Ended up getting them for $24 each.

I then popped out the god-forsaken e13 "why would you want to replace your bearings" reducer cups, "removed" the bearings, then popped them into the angleset cups, et voila: -2* reducer headset for $60.

"oh yeah, just pop the bearings out he said":

bottom:

top:

Despite how little I liked my previous angleset, the options were either a new one @ $120 or $160, or a works setup for $120. This should give me better geometry and the cost is hard to argue with. I already have lockrings, crown races, spacers, and top caps to set the thing up. The new cups of the angleset appear to be redesigned, so maybe that will reduce the crappiness.

 

[William42]

if you don't mind me asking, how much are you spending on this project?

 

[Sandwich]

I don't have a total yet, as not everything is ordered. It looks like I may get a new fork @500 which will push the price higher than expected, but I'm hoping around 800.

 

[William42]

not bad, best of luck with that, hope it stays there!

 

[Sandwich]

Thanks dude. By my maffs, it'll hit $800 on the nose without a shock revalve. That should include a bunch of new parts.

 

[Sandwich]

updayyyts

Bike is 90% complete. I need to redish the rear wheel, cut the steerer, install shock bushings and clamp the reservoir, and I'm good to go.

Based on my calculations, I'm sitting at $800 on the nose after it's complete. I will probably need a shock revalve though.