Technical & Reference Section > Tech and Restoration

Firebird Freestyler Ideas?

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jend:
What would you guy's recommend I do with this?  Sentimental value is more important than monetary value.  I have no intension of selling and want to preserve it.  The chrome seems pretty bad in places and I'm not apposed to paint/powder.  I often thought I should have had a white one.

I'm quite happy to put some elbow grease into restoring.  I used to strip and clean it every couple of months in the 80s.  Despite being quite house proud my mum used to let me polish parts in the lounge in front of the TV!!!   There'd be no chance of me letting my son do that now, lol.

Thanks, J

Retrodan72:
Great piece of your history you've got there.

You're doing the right thing not selling, it obviously has a lot of meaning and sentiment and you'll find that once it's gone, you'll regret it and buying another will be costly and unless the person you sold it to decides to let you have it back, you'll have lost your history.

Mechanically, do what you did in the 80's, strip/clean/grease and build. Clean all the plastics and other bits and only replace things that are beyond restoration. Nothing looks too bad on there to be fair.

As for the chrome, try an oxy bath. I've never done it myself, but have seen loads of people having great success doing it, you just need a paddling pool full of water and some citric acid. This will clean up any chrome work, without harming the decals.

Personally, if it were mine, I?d lose those pegs, they look really out of place on a mid 80's bike. That's just my opinion though, it's your bike and you can build it how you choose.

CustardLips:
That's in great shape mate.  :4_17_5:
Strip it down and give the f&f and any other chrome parts that may need it a citric acid or oxalic acid bath.  Clean all the other parts, re-grease it and put it back together... good as new.  :daumenhoch:

CustardLips:
How to guide... no pics but you'll get the gist...

http://www.radbmx.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,178383.0.html

Whichever you choose to use (oxalic or citric) won't do any harm to the original decals either.  :daumenhoch:

wildon:
Defo just give the chrome a clean as already said.  I've given frames similar to that oxalic baths and they come up amazing .. you'll be surprised how good the chrome is under that rust.  you're going to erase all the history of that bike stripping off the original decals and painting it.  It's only original once.  :daumenhoch:

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