ORBO Le Klunker de Acatène

BartRidesEternal · Feb 20, 2025

The Manitou crown gets a new CroMoly neck:

Remove a bit from the tube, since its 30mm diameter. The crown is 28.6mm. There is a extra bush pressed inside now to compensate the loss of the CrMoly headtube.
Pressed with loctite 601.

One side has M5 thread and a screw, just to be sure.

BartRidesEternal · Feb 24, 2025

The fork 'leg holes' are 28,6mm. The CrMoly tubes are 28mm....
I found a old steel cigar box which had a wall thickness of 0.25mm

I cut it out, over the full height of the fork hole and glued the outside with a strong, flexible sealant.

Now the fork legs can slide in and out! And can be properly clamped!

Hydraulics :21:

Left there to dry with some leftover 28mm tubes in there.

Now to fabricate a dropout. I'm no expert on cool retro-fork-dropouts, maybe @Captain Awesome ?
I saw these cool speedholed BMX fork dropouts!

I'm thinking about 50mm fork offset.

Sad sketch on my steel plate :bigsmile:

For the final braze, I'm waiting for a piece of aluminum. Then I can fabricate the left rear dropout with an hacksaw and file and get all the braze-ons perfect!

Rear dropout will be 144mm (I chose a symmetrical rear chainstay, that how wide it is then). The sketch gives a impression of the bushes that need to be fabricated.
The wheel will be laced off-centre as the sketch shows.

I will utilize a 32 hole Histop coasterbrake hub, I have a new one lying around.

So I'll need some bushes that can distribute the load.

The hub with the sprocket. Large washers act as temporary spacers.

Captain Awesome · Feb 24, 2025

Can’t go wrong with the classics

Race Inc style

BartRidesEternal · Feb 27, 2025

I made spacers for the hub.
The shaft is M10x1 and 165mm long. The hub is 145mm wide...
I couldn't find a longer shaft with the same thread, so I have a solution.
Now its temporarily set up, so I can lace the wheel in the centre between the dropouts. The rim will be off-centre compared to the spoke flanges though!

With spacers! Boost :21:

Fork set up for dropouts.
The JIG is temporary, this did not work as easy as I anticipated.

Drew the dropouts on a leftover piece of steel. Drilled a 10mm hole and locked it with a bolt, so it stays aligned when I cut it this weekend.

Thanks @Captain Awesome for the inspirational picture of the 'Race Inc' fork!

BartRidesEternal · Mar 3, 2025

Alrighty!

I ordered the spokes. I expected a larger spoke length difference.

And I made the fork dropouts by hand.

The numbers.

Rim.

Ready!

I might braze a final time this wednesday. Then cleaning the frame the week after.

Still a little scared in regards to that end date. Lots to do...

I found this klunker on the interwebs. I like the colour setting like this!

BartRidesEternal · Wednesday at 2:21 PM

Today I had a little timewindow to braze the last bits and the fork. After one fork dropout, the oxygen tank was empty.
I went to a local shop and they can get one in a few days/a week.

After that, I worked on the left-rear aluminum dropout.

So satisfying!

Sweet!!

Deburring and a little filing here and there left.

What do you think? Should I make all the speedholes bigger? Or different?
I could add a nice countersunk/chamfer.... I'll sleep on that.

Pondo · Wednesday at 4:47 PM

Looks great! I like the progressively bigger holes like in your fork dropouts.

BartRidesEternal · Thursday at 4:48 AM

I cut the aluminum plate. Made a few mistakes unfortunately, I lost control over the saw a bit and scuffed the surface twice. I was rushing it too much... learning moment :crazy2:

On a leftover scrap piece I tried sanding and brushing. I liked how it looked so I did the entire plate.

Pondo said:
Looks great! I like the progressively bigger holes like in your fork dropouts.

I did!

Clear coated.

If in the complete bike it doesn't look good, I can always paint it.

curtisfox · Thursday at 7:28 AM

Just for the h

eck of it 1914 Jefferson had simuler dropout.........Curt

Captain Awesome · Thursday at 10:47 AM

BartRidesEternal said:
Thanks for all the great ideas! I now have a 'general direction' in regards to paint and colouring.

I think about painting the frame, fork and shaft myself.

I'll try the black tires I have in a mockup first. Then see what colour comes to me.

Coming friday is going to be a warm day, but I won't be finished with my frame by then.

Currently I am working on ze forks:

I bought a new CrMoly 1 1/8" threadless fork tube.
>The crown part of the tube is 30mm.
>The Manitou crown is 28.6mm and no space for reaming...
>The Manitou fork has 28.6mm holes fork the legs and I have 28mm fork legs...

Why does everything has to be custom?

Fork legs: 0.25mm shim plate. Placed with a little two-component glue. Check!

Crown-Fork tube:
View attachment 288912
Why? So I can still utilize standardized bearings and now I won't have to ream the aluminum fork crown.

View attachment 288913
I will press a CrMoly tube in there to make up for the lost material.

View attachment 288914

Safety thirst!

I need to find one of these crowns!

Maybe @ingola has a lead

ingola · Thursday at 2:31 PM

Captain Awesome said:
I need to find one of these crowns!

Maybe @ingola has a lead

One of these

Captain Awesome · Thursday at 2:57 PM

ingola said:
One of theseView attachment 289985

Yeah but probably with steer tube

I guess whole fork I could gut would work too

BartRidesEternal · Friday at 1:47 AM

Captain Awesome said:
Yeah but probably with steer tube

I guess whole fork I could gut would work too

I have one crown with OK-ish steer tube.
1 1/8" threaded steer tube. For 28mm fork legs (standard metric tubing).
You can have it for free @Captain Awesome (well, shipping) :grin:

I bought it at the Christmas fair from a guy from Belgium for a cup of coffee.

BartRidesEternal · Saturday at 2:25 PM

Update:

Project choking, still out of oxygen. Literally! :bigsmile:

Parts flying around.

choking mom + pop music GIF by Neon Indian

I ordered a motocross handlebar from some lady on marketplace. Red anodised! With a silver shiny pad.

After that I kinda figured out the colour direction.
Something like this, but not like this :crazy:

Red and Blue.

So I ordered a headset, seatpost clamp, topcap with starnut and more.
Boy, I have some great stuff coming up! I wish I could see the reactions :21:

BartRidesEternal · 2025-03-09T14:34:50-0500

Laced my first wheel! 3-cross pattern. 13g stainless steel spokes. Well still have to true it...
Waiting for the trueing stand to come in. Lacing a wheel is about 2x more expensive than 5-6 years ago. One wheel is about as much as a decent trueing stand

And since this is a thing I will be doing more off in the future...

He knows whats up!

Bling!

The red bar is mine soon. Motocross or Pitbike. Very wide!
Unfortunately the blue bar was sold.
I'll work with what I've got and still make it awesome

ORBO Le Klunker de Acatène

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