This is my take on the cheap bike challenge, or cheap bike build off.
For as little as possible I see how to get a cheap bike in London for commuting college or just a sunny Sunday ride 🙂
The bike is an 1989 Diamondback Ascent Ex with Shimano Mountain LX Groupset.
In this part we take a detailed look at the condition and what it took to strip down the bike, clean and start the re assembly process.
Le me know of any comments or suggestions – would happily take them!
#cheapbikebuildoff #cheapbike #cheapbikechallenge
Thanks for clicking on the video this is my cheap bike challenge Diamond Back Ascent ex uh it has a Shimano Mountain LX group Set uh the overall the bike was extremely crusty but I’m fairly happy with how it turned out and how it’s progressing so yeah make yourself a brew and enjoy the
Video so guys give the bike once over so plan of action group set is going to be kept I really like these thumb shifters uh the wheels uh needs full service regreasing and the cassette is not moving at all so something something is looking there uh all the individual
Components brakes seat post handlebars them they seem okay that everything moves so everything is going to stay the same pretty much not a restoration as such but I’m just going to keep what’s on the bike and yeah so next step strip everything down regrease get rid of
Rost and yeah we’ll see how it turns out w yeah come with the bike dismantled I could get in with some Degreaser and some bike cleaner and give everything a good clean there ended up being a lot of staining so what I did is I got some extra fine
Steel wool and went over the whole frame just to take away the top layer it turned out okay got rid of most of the staining but it mostly just St the frame so after that I could get some medium steel whe just rougher stuff and Tackle
All the rast patches um I like how this turned out it gives it a nice patina what I being too harsh it kind of softens in softens it in with the paint work and then since I D the frame with the uh steel wall just to get the stains
Off went over with some metal polish uh this is just autool the standard metal polish uh seemed to work okay brought back the shine and the paint work and overall I was happy considering how badly the condition of the frame was so one of the pedals had a d cap
Missing so what I was able to do is use an old bar plug I cut it to the correct depth and then I could make some shins for it with some duct tape so it worked okay it was kind of a snook fit not sure
How long it will last but at least it gives us some a better chance of surviving a few years then I used some spray all just to give it out had a good clean and then could pack some new grease in it and get it reassembled
So the right hand shifter has four pins that should attach into the brake body but you can see here they’re after shearing off it must have been crashed at some point so to fix this I got some mesh sandpaper cut it to size and then I
Could put this up in between the brake body and the shifter and I gave enough of a hold that uh I think it’ be secure enough to shift it did anyway on the hle bar but we’ll know once we do a test next week so yeah you could just put put
It back together and then all I have to do was reassemble the shifter put some new grease in make sure the bearings were correct the lever between the friction and the indexing had bent so I had to unbend that but yeah adjust the tension and then just glue the those cap back on
Just to make a note that I like to first use a Degreaser and then clean off the Degreaser with a regular bike wash I find the Degreaser does normally doesn’t come off with uh with just the water in so I like to use something a bit soapy
Just to make sure everything’s off and it’s ready for greasing so we’ve just done a complete strip down I’ve I’ve gone through all the components it’s a it was messy this bike was extremely crusty uh I managed to save all the components actually on crank Set uh gears brakes shifters
Everything but um yeah got a new bottom bracket got new tires new saddle and um I did a try test just uh put the wheels on quickly and I don’t like the H bars these are going to be replaced by some highrise ones uh those are ordered and
Should be uh here by the time I get rented them headset is more it feels rough this needs to be replaced even when new bearings it needs to be replaced uh the right hand shifter was completely smashed and I don’t know what happened someone had gotten into there before
Either was crashed and bent uh but yeah that just needed a complete reel and I need to figure out how to do it so it’s working about 80% it will shift but uh feels crusty doesn’t feel nice but yeah I guess that’s what you get with these
Uh cheap bikes uh you win some and you lose some this was uh a lose I think unless you were had experience with this sort of stuff uh it would have been a struggle you would have been better off buying half the stuff new and yeah let’s get
Cracking with the full build okay I’ve just fitted the old crank set and it’s properly bent now I noticed this when I was taking it apart that it looked bent but I took my chance that was a bottom bracket uh but no unfortunately it’s actually
This crank set so sucks but um this is what I prepared earlier and this is one I’ve taken off a bike that’s actually currently in this repair uh it needs a fork service and all the cabling redone so I’m just going to borrel this for this build and then we’ll come to it
The left time shifter can come off the brake so I think it’ll still look really neat but yeah I think these is a very bulky crank set that sus alloy frames cuz they’re they’re uh the frame shoes are a bit thicker so it looks a bit odd
Here but uh we’ll go with it for now and then see how it turns out it’s all by two Tre mil two Tre mil is okay okay what I’m doing here is basically just taking off the 5 10 shifter off the brake bodyy so here we go that’s
Off so as should be able to see that boat stick it sticks out I don’t really care about that that’s fine so this is as far as I got for part one uh thanks for watching all the way to the end of the video guys um I got I got
The drivetrain on and then most of the components I just wanted to wait for the new handle bar and here you can just see me trying to test fit the reach and how it feels uh I’m 6 foot and felt enormous on this bike so yeah this is not being
Kept it’s going to go straight to a friend so yeah in the next video I’ll get the new hle bar finish the cave lean get the Bell and the bottle cage and all those stuff installed and then yeah go for the first test ride which I’m actually getting excited about so again
Thanks for watching and if you could do the usual like And subscribe much appreciated