Building An Iconic 90s Kona Mountain Bike - 1990 Fire Mountain Restoration

[@stephenstevens6573]

Awesome classic build! That frame was just sparkling!! Did my heart good to see you just LEAVE SOMETHING ALONE! LOL...no 1x, no changing out groupsets...no modifying brakes. They were designed that way for a reason! As always, your attention to detail was fantastic! great job!

[@MonkeyShred]

Thanks! I think most of my builds are pretty original, well, the resto's at least! I definitely appreciate a 3x drivetrain more and more.

[@layspeed]

Great restoration build. Love old Konas. You're right about classic mountain bikes being such versatile machines. They literally will do almost anything you want to on a bike. Enjoyed watching this on a Saturday morning.

[@MonkeyShred]

Thanks for watching!

[@layspeed]

@@MonkeyShred For those 10 seconds or less, I'm free. 😉

[@techjunkie68smusicandtech56]

That is a lovely bike, love the colour too! The group set is a solid choice for a bike like that. I have it on my 1992 GT Pantera AL too, just simple but it works as it should. Those early 90's bikes were real workhorses, not just for off road cycling either. Enjoy!

[@michaelzanotto8469]

The handlebars complete the build. Great fun nice looking commuter bike!!!

[@MonkeyShred]

It really is comfy with those bars!

[@01FozzyS]

Nice one as always! I have a '94 Fire Mountain Race Light in green and gold. Love the handling.

[@MonkeyShred]

I keep seeing Kona's I want now!

[@yardsalecycles]

Love the color and rigid mtb are always a good choice

[@badger67]

Lovely build mate and I love the colour scheme. What more could you ask for, with a Flexstem, Project 2 forks, Deore LX gruppo and a Joe Murray designed chromo frame. Nice.

[@MonkeyShred]

It definitely surprised me and now I want another Kona!

[@brianmaldonado3723]

My 2 least favorite bicycle maintenance things: cleaning between spokes and installing cantilever brakes. I don't mind watching somebody else do these though 😁.

[@MonkeyShred]

I don't mind cleaning between spokes but the rest of the cleaning jobs suck!

[@ilias4156]

my 1st bike, a fire mnt, was stollen out of my yard.. im going to build a good old kona someday! lovely paint!

[@MonkeyShred]

Oh no! Thankfully I've not had that heart break yet!

[@aidanmouellic5919]

Ha! how timely, I just got a 1990 (my birth year!) Kona Lava dome, frame looks identical except its got the yellow splatter, currently its in the shop getting some love but can't wait to ride it about! The early 90s Joe Murray Kona bikes are so rad and classic looking.

[@ronwhite8503]

Woo-hoo! I am still rocking the Flexstem, with North road bars, on my Cinder Cone. One of it's many interpretations. I am lucky enough to own a Lava Dome and Explosif, too.

[@RonaldFelipe]

I have a Kona Fire Mountain Deluxe 2009 and I love this frame, I use a cornerbar and it was perfect for travel.

[@MonkeyShred]

The Surly Cornerbar? Toasty Rides has one on his Kona too. It looks like an interesting setup!

[@myvicariouslife4012]

I'm glad too see that the seatpost didn't cause you grief. I picked up a nice Kona killeanea at the goodwill for $30 but ended up selling parts on eBay. The seatpost would not come out. I even resorted to trying to hacksaw it out but gave up. Ended up just giving away the frame. In hindsight I should had a machine sop drill it out.

[@MonkeyShred]

The frameset didn't come with a seatpost so that's a brand new one. Google told me the right size too! Amzing.

[@floppywonka]

happy to see you put the front brake on the right where it belongs

[@BVI215]

Buen mantenimiento amigo.Saludos desde España. 💪💪

[@MonkeyShred]

Muchas gracias!

[@murphykenji]

Beautiful work. I don't know if I would have kept the flex stem, might have added some fatter tires instead but it looks great.

[@MonkeyShred]

I think fatter tyres would have been a benefit too. These were pretty fast rolling though. It was a decent ride.

[@GeneticVehicle]

superb bike, really nice and sympathetic build.

[@MonkeyShred]

Thanks!

[@thesausage351]

One bike id love to have back is my Repco mountain bike my Nan built for me in about 1991. It was totally the wrong time to buy a new lower end bike. If I would have waited another year, I could have gotten one with centre pull brakes, 18 speed, and with indexing shifters, but mine was bottom of the barrel. It was a steel frame in white with Repco on the down tube in black, no model or anything on it, but it had fluro yellow forks and an all black steel cockpit, as well as chrome steel wheels. Super low spec bike, and I think it was $199. But that bike was everything to me. I learned how to work on bikes with it and I put all my money from my job I had at 14 into it and eventually it was 18 speed, and just about everything had been customised. I remember the bike shop man being amazed that I had converted the wheel from 5 speed to 6 and set up the new derailleur without any help, or instructions (and obviously KZbin wasn’t around) but I just went into my shed and figured it out. I’ve had dozens of bikes since then and I now own bikes much more valuable, much cooler, much more advanced and much better all around, but gee I’d love one of those old girls to turn into my old bike.

[@MonkeyShred]

Cool story. Hope you find one of those old bikes to turn in to yours again.

[@thesausage351]

@@MonkeyShred fingers crossed hey! It’s funny though, I have a really nice Marin here that is almost finished, plus a couple of other projects that just need buttoning up, as well as a really sweet patina vintage build, and he’s me spending hours looking at used bikes to try and find something that I had 30yrs ago and was outdated before I bought it, and I know what I’m like, I will 100% search for months to find the right gum wall tyres and pay more than the bike is worth just to have something that I will more than likely hang on my wall and look at. I swear I have all of my marbles though. I’m a perfectly well adjusted functioning member of society, I swear!

[@duringthemeanwhilst]

looks like previous owners took cars of it cracking re-build and a great runaround for someone (in a flat area!!)

[@MonkeyShred]

It conquers hill easily too!

[@toastyrides]

Love it, comfy bars and LX bits 😍 awesome work! It’s so clean! 🤯 a few small spots but they cleaned up real nicely 👏 Also, they splattered in the bb shell?!

[@4ROKE4]

What is the yellow grease you use for assembly? And how does it differ from the red one for the bearings?

[@brrrt6666]

The moustache and flex stem seem a bit counterintuitive to me, wouldn't the backsweep negate the dampening. Really solid build none the less...

[@mmw8104]

SO nice! I have the same model in black that i'm currently rebuilding into a single speed. Looking for wider tires for extra-comfort. What's the widest tire size this bike will take? Also, is the seatpost a 26mm or 26.6mm?

[@MonkeyShred]

I’ve managed to fit a 2.25” on a 91’ Diamondback Apex but on my ‘92 Schwinn I could only fit a 2” on the front because a 2.2” was just a little too close to the fork for comfort. It’s a bit of trial and error I’m afraid! Seatpost… might be in the description with the spec but off the top of my head I can’t remember.

[@jp93309]

Love that paintjob! Did you get a chance to weigh the bike or frame? I recently rebuilt a 92 Skykomish Marble Point (w/splatter paint) that weighed nearly 17kg. Converted to SS, ditched the heavy spring comfort seat and dropped to an astonishing 11.6kg! Just floored by the weight savings and how it affects the ride feel. Definitely a fun fast bike in my collection.

[@MonkeyShred]

Thanks! I haven't had chance to weigh it just yet. I imagine it's around 13/14 kg!

[@The1trueDave]

13:12 aw, I used to love those old double-button shifters! I still have some somewhere but suspect they may be screwed :-/

[@MonkeyShred]

They're real easy to strip down and rebuild though! So that's a plus right?

[@The1trueDave]

@@MonkeyShred I think the plastic shrouds are broken or missing but they are probably functional or not too far off. They'll just look like crap :-)

[@sd3457]

My first MTB was a 1989 Fire Mountain, which was black with pink spatters, and hadn't yet been given the straight P2 forks. I put a flexstem on mine too but it was unfortunately stolen from outside my University lecture theatre less than a year later.

[@MonkeyShred]

AH no! Not another stolen Kona! Black with pink splatter sounds awesome too!

[@jasondunlap9823]

Very nice

[@MonkeyShred]

Cheers Jason

[@-RM-]

Great build. Curious: Do you always route the right brake lever to the front brakes? In the US, brakes are "right/rear" and "left/front". I've been wrenching on bikes since the late 80's and I've never run across a single bike that had the brakes left/right crossed. 🤔

[@MonkeyShred]

🙀 you’ve been doing it wrong since the 80s!! Nah it’s the British way that came about from motorcycles. Front brake was always the right. That carried across in to bicycles.

[@travelguy1564]

Hi - I just bought a Kona Fire Mountain bike last week at Goodwill - it looks old, kinda rusty too. The serial number on the bottom of the crankshaft reads: GP005277 - what year do you think it may be? Or what years did they make them? Thanks

[@MonkeyShred]

No idea how to check the serial number vs date I’m afraid. Plenty of old catalogues available online though to browse through to try and find the right model and year.

[@travelguy1564]

@@MonkeyShred - thanks for the reply!

[@Stefan_trekkie]

The paint jobs are matter of perspective and taste ... There is nothing like Cinelli super corsa with a chromed lugs

[@MonkeyShred]

True!

[@delticrobo]

Please can you advise me, these usual type of 90s headsets, you use a pair of spanners. I've just bought a Park Tool HCW 15, which is 32 36 sizing, which I can see is your top spanner on the video. Is the bottom one the same? Should I have bought a second HcW-15 too for such work. I believe this sizing is the most common? Thanks.

[@MonkeyShred]

I’ve got that Park spanner but I also have a cheaper spanner too that has 4 sizes on it. I think it’s an Ice Toolz spanner. Normally you can just get away with a thin headset spanner on the bottom and a adjustable spanner on the top nut though.

[@delticrobo]

@MonkeyShred thank you. I am building up a tool kit and yet to start tinkering and repairing. I've collected a few Saracen bikes and want to start stripping them down, cleaning and re-assembling them etc. I enjoy your videos along with a few others like RJ The bike Guy and others. Thanks for your help.

[@delticrobo]

Will you be doing any restore videos on Saracen bikes from the 90s?

[@gasperplesko2976]

What did you use for rust spots? Do you have a link to the product? Thank you

[@MonkeyShred]

Mmm I usually say in the vid so apologies if I forgot. It was just some very fine wire wool and T Cut.

[@gasperplesko2976]

@@MonkeyShred thank you, you do mention it but i did't know it before, hm the only thing I can find online is a T-cut pen, you had a bottle?

[@MonkeyShred]

@@gasperplesko2976 yes sir! T Cut do a bunch of different products. Some are colour specific but I have a universal ‘paint restorer’ it’s about £10 for a bottle.

[@johnbuxton3841]

Nice build, but why the U brake on the rear seat stays. It looks strange.

[@MrJonas2255]

At the time it was an upgrade over basic cantilever brakes

[@MonkeyShred]

Yeah it was just a thing some manufacturers did at that time. GT were doing it too before going to double canti's

[@johndef5075]

My early 90s GTs were similar.

[@Herbybandit]

I take it your a fan of Girvin?

[@MonkeyShred]

I think they're a nice bit of kit yeah!

[@t-anh8526]

The size of the classic kona frame is measured in C to T . so i think this frame should be 18

[@MonkeyShred]

I supply both C-C and C-T when selling bikes so hopefully nobody is confused.

[@SomeDudeQC]

I'm kind of confused. How is it heavy? What makes it heavy?

[@b2clipz]

The 4130 main tubes sticker, mainly

[@floppywonka]

@@b2clipz that sticker's gotta weigh like 3lbs

[@oreocarlton3343]

@@floppywonka plain gauge tubes?

[@rosswhite7615]

deore is new campag wtf, shifts so well!

[@MonkeyShred]

Long live Shimano!

[@socapex]

Using a cone spanner for pedals is not recommended.

[@MonkeyShred]

😂 that’s a pedal spanner. It’s only job is to wrench on pedals.

[@futabaisekai4492]

Federal puma

[@MonkeyShred]

I'm not sure I follow?

[@oreocarlton3343]

12:54 grips are wrong way round

[@tonypotter9578]

Nice build…what is your eBay link?

[@elbotho]

in the description

[@muthatrucker6485]

Link doesn't atm work though

[@tonypotter9578]

No, but the user id is there and searched manually 👍

[@MonkeyShred]

Does the copy and paste link not work? I can't work out why it keeps breaking!

[@tonypotter9578]

@@MonkeyShred hi, no - I just searched with your user name shown in the link which does work!

[@jonesmin8354]

居然后花鼓塔基都不拆开保养上油，真是胡弄外行

[@DM-hw4cr]

Shame kona has become so boring with terrible value.

[@oreocarlton3343]

They still make interesting stuff with great frames