Technical & Reference Section > Tech and Restoration

DK General Lee

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renegaderacer:
After building a Gary Fisher for a friend of mine recently, I've got the bug for mid-school bikes and went on the hunt for something cheap and interesting. I'd always fancied a General Lee and when I saw this I just had to have it. It's hard to say what year it is as conflicting information online means it's somewhere between 1999-2002 and either built in the US or Taiwan. Either way, at least it's one of the 4130 ones. I know it's not a grail model but is a damn sight cheaper and that fits my criteria perfectly.

To say it needs a lot of work is an understatement! They were prone to snapping and this one is no different which is one of the reasons I wanted it as I love saving bikes fit for the bin. I think I may need the expert help of Phil on this one though!  :LolLolLolLol:

The thing which makes this a really cool build for me was when the seller, David Paling, messaged me completely out of the blue with a little history on the bike. Here's it straight from my eBay messages.....

" Hi sorry for the delay...
Went though a lot of memories packaging this bike and thought you may like to know some of its history...

In 2004 I rode this at bike 2004 nec with dave Mirra, I had skyway graphites on that Hoffman gave me and I crashed head in with fuzzy hall haha...

Also I took it to America it rode chances skatepark in Atlanta, Chicago and Greenville north Carolina

It was also ridden for quite abit at derby storm

2004 was a crazy year

I was still riding it when I rode for Simon tabrons spinlikehell till 2006 and used it on a eastern bikes tour with Leigh ramsdell, Alan Cooke, Adam Banton and several others...

Anyways sorry for memory lane but thought you maybe interested..

All the best

David paling"

After what I know now, I definitely have to restore it to see it fight on for many years to come.

Underneath the rattle-canned green paint it is an orange General which is the colour I'm going to restore it to. I always build freestyle bikes but after I built my first race bike over Christmas I now want to cross another style off the list and do a dirt/jump bike! I've started to build up a collection of parts but as you can see the most work is definitely going to go into the frame!   :LolLolLolLol:

renegaderacer:
......and some more pics........

renegaderacer:
.....and just a couple more....

renegaderacer:
I'm trying to keep everything black and orange so I picked up a pair of Primo Moustache bars that I'm going to strip and get repowdered. The ad said they had full grip length, plus more but they're clearly cut down and barely fit the ODI grips on but as it's the style of dirt bikes of the era, I'm going to keep them and use shorter grips. The only other thing I need to do is get a new decal made up for them.

I also picked up a really nice pair of Odyssey Pro Dirt Forks that I'll also get repowdered black.

A black 44t Profile chainring was sourced but was a bit damaged so I've filed down all the gouges and chips and will strip it and get it re-annodised along with a Haro Fusion style seat clamp that was thrown in with the bars.

I also managed to pick up a nice Primo seat while I was at it along with a Dirty Harry brake lever which will work well if I have to mount it on the bend of the bar due to the cut down length. The final thing so far is a minty Odyssey GI stem I got for a good price and now I'm out of money until next month!  :LolLolLolLol:

One of the things I'm most looking forward to though is stripping the paint off everything with the 5 litres of Starchem Synstrip I've just bought. I've read good things about it and can't wait to try a stripper that might actually work since the demise of Nitromors that was actually any good!

renegaderacer:
The seat clamp had plenty of hammer marks on it but I filed and rubbed it all down smooth, so now it's ready for Oven Pride then annodising.

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