Fixing up a bike

JJJJNR

I'm looking to do up an old mountain bike as a project with my 11 year old son, i'd like to have it completed by Christmas. Its in a fairly bad state, but I want to get it sandblasted and repainted etc. I'm very bad with bike repairs but want to give it a go anyway.

Here are the pics of the bike.

1. It needs new handle bars, the ones at the min have built in gears, are these easy to replace, the gears are not working at all.

2. Needs two new wheels, and tires.

3. Fully sand blasted and painted.

4. Rear brakes are gone (disconnected) again any help in getting these back.

5. Any links to decals, he's typical 11 year old, into gaming (minecraft, mw3), sports like basketball, football, etc. Would like to theme the bike this way. Minecraft heavy pixelated graphic would be excellent.

Probably going to cost a lot to get it fixed up.? any rough ideas.

Joey Joe-Joe Jr

I'm no expert by any means and i understand perfectly the desire to carry out a restoration project but I would expect that you would spend about three times more trying to fix that up than you would buying a second hand bike of far superior quality. By the looks of the rust I would reckon practically every moving part would need replacing. Not worth the hassle in my opinion.

Nice user name! ;-)

Capt'n Midnight

gotta agree with looking for a good secondhand one

brake adjustment can be tricky if you don't know what you are doing.


http://www.adverts.ie/bikes/fixer-up-bike-raleigh-mantaray/1386429

Tonyandthewhale

New handlebars should be easy enough to replace. Just pull or cut off the grips, loosen the allen key bolts holding on the break levers and gear levers (they're not built in, there should be a little allen head somewhere that you loosen and they'll slide off) and open the stem bolt in the middle of the bars and you can remove them. Reverse the order of all that to replace. Any 25.4mm flat or riser handlebars will work as replacements.
The website CRC has bars starting from 6.40e.

Does it actually need new wheels? A regrease of the hubs and maybe some truing with a spoke wrench to get them straight again should make most wheels road-worthy again. This obviously requires a bit of know-how but if you're doing this project because you want to spend time with your son and get him interested in working with his hands and figuring out how stuff works then maybe it's worthwhile. Otherwise you can probably get some dirt cheap wheels in Rothar in Phibsborough if you're anywhere near Dublin.

As regards tyres, get slick tyres (just make sure they're mountain bike tyres, so a 26 inch rim rather than 700c). Slick tyres will make the bike a lot faster and a lot more comfortable to ride and you don't need knobbies unless you're riding off-road to an extent that I probably wouldn't be comfortable with on such a cheap bike.

Sand blasted and painted is something that's been discussed on this forum (so you can do a search if no one comes up with any more details) before but bear in mind a proper sand-blasting and painting will probably cost over 100e which is more than this bike is worth. Stripping the paint yourself with sand-paper and priming and spraying with spraypaint and home-made vinyl decals can achieve surprisingly decent results if you know what you're doing but it'll never be as hard-wearing as a factory finish.

Rear brake looks like it just needs a new brake cable. Should cost about 2 euro although you can buy a decent set of new V-brakes for surprisingly little money and they'll improve stopping power enormously: http://www.roseversand.com/article/shimano-deore-lx-v-brake-br-t660/aid:287823

You'll also probably need a new chain (any 5, 6, 7 or 8 speed chain will work because they're all the same width) and if you're going to put that on yourself you'll need to buy to buy a chain-breaker.
You may also find that the gear cassette (the sprockets) are worn and need to be replaced. This will also require specialist tools if you want to do all the work yourself.

The gear levers may not be broken as you said, the cables might just be rusted in the housing or the derailleurs could be rusted beyond use or otherwise broken.

If I had to restore this bike I'd replace the suspension fork with a rigid fork, put some slick tyres on it, buy a derailleur hangar, a singlespeed cog, singlespeed chain and singlespeed crankset and make it light(ish), fast(ish) and minimalist. Although realistically, if I was going to restore a bike I'd find a nicer one than this. There's pretty much nothing there that I'd want to keep.

I honestly don't know how much you can expect to pay, it won't make economic sense anyway but DIY projects rarely do.
You could spend hundreds of euro on sand-blasting and painting and tools and parts or you could spend a few euro on 3 in 1 oil and just do as little as possible to get it rolling.