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what would RM do?

descente

Monkey
Jul 30, 2010
430
0
Sandy Eggo
heres the low down:
i've got an older morewood ndiza. i'm not the original owner. tonight i took it apart to try and track down the looseness i've begun feeling in the pivot. what i found made me very very sad.

the pivot boss which was welded into the frame has completely broken free from the welds that hold it, causing it to rattle. it can't quite spin, but its getting there to give you an idea of how bad it is.

seeing as the ndiza has been discontinued, and i'm not the original owner i have a feeling i am on my own here. i love this bike, it is the sickest, funnest bike i've ever ridden and we were just getting to know each other.

i have many friends who are comfortable TIG welding AL. i'm a pretty confident fabricator and i know this is definitely fixable.

so what would you do?
 

dropmachine

Turbo Monkey
Sep 7, 2001
2,922
10
Your face.
How much is your life worth? Do you trust your friends welding enough to ride a jackhammering bomb down a rocky hill at 800mph? I don't.

Why not contact Morewood and see what they will do? If you are a racer, or maybe just loyal to the brand, perhaps they can help you out.



i will admit that I don't know much about welding aluminum, but man...no. :D
 

buckoW

Turbo Monkey
Mar 1, 2007
3,777
4,697
Champery, Switzerland
If your friends weld it then make sure you can get it properly heat treated. Different aluminums need different heat treating processes and some being alot hotter than others. I ride bikes quite often with a friend's welds in some critical spots. If you keep an eye on it and it was heat treated correctly then you should be fine.

If it were me I would definately take it to my friend. Ventana would probably be a safer option.
 

al-irl

Turbo Monkey
Dec 9, 2004
1,086
0
A, A
get in touch with morewood. There pretty cool to deal with on this sort of thing. As the bike has only just been taken out of production it may still be possible to get a replacement front end. If they can't do anything for you which im sure they will try there best. Then resort to plan b and get a friend to weld it
 

Inclag

Turbo Monkey
Sep 9, 2001
2,750
439
MA
I'd probably get in touch with Frank The Welder if Morewood can't resolve the issue.
 

descente

Monkey
Jul 30, 2010
430
0
Sandy Eggo
Already got an email back from Lance @ Entrada, we'll see what comes of it. I'll try that number for richard as well. I am definitely loyal to brands, especially if they have good service on handmade frames...I was really hoping to use this ride as my mini DH and dual race bike this coming season now that i have a job which will allow me to travel more. And I am definitely looking to replace my old commie with a new makulu or izimu
 

descente

Monkey
Jul 30, 2010
430
0
Sandy Eggo
so apparently there are SPI bikes and SPI2. my bike is SPI (the older design), and not compatible with the SPI2 design apparently. the rep i am in contact no longer has access to SPI front triangles.

anybody have a good contact for F T W?
 

bdamschen

Turbo Monkey
Nov 28, 2005
3,377
156
Spreckels, CA
How much is your life worth? Do you trust your friends welding enough to ride a jackhammering bomb down a rocky hill at 800mph? I don't.

Why not contact Morewood and see what they will do? If you are a racer, or maybe just loyal to the brand, perhaps they can help you out.



i will admit that I don't know much about welding aluminum, but man...no. :D
I'll throw down to the flip side of that:

-It's already as broke as it was going to get and it didn't kill him.

-As long as the tig welding person knows what they're doing, they should be able to tell you if they can get a strong enough weld on there.

-Heat treating would probably be a good idea


I somehow had gotten one of Morewood's prototype Izimus a while back, which didn't have the extra gusset between the top tube and the head tube. As such, I was pretty much fated to slam into a volkswagen sized boulder at full speed and put a crack in just that very location.

At the time I had no money for a new frame, or even for the crash replacement Morewood had offered me out of the goodness of their hearts, soooo....

I took it to this guy I know who builds stuff like this for a living and told him I didn't care if it was pretty, I just wanted a bike again. Made me an ugly weld that worked.

I rode that bike for another year over some pretty rough crap ie Goats Gully in whistler, all over Northstar, etc, no problems.

Moral of the story: bike people get super freaked out about welding stuff.