GT ZR - Shimmy Shimmy Ya

I acquired a 2001 GT ZR (Zaskar Road) 3.0 on the forum last year and haven't done anything with it yet. I need a road bike for a Peak District ride in a few weeks (ohshitohshitohshit) and my plan is to put a bike together around this frame.

The vision is to strip of its paint and go raw alloy. I'd like to end up with a shiny finish a la the 90s Zaskars and Avalanches, but if not, I'll have to settle for whatever I end up with. I don't really know what I'm doing, so the end result should be hilarious. The current plan is to Nitromors it and then polish magically with wet and dry sanding. The alternative would be a chemical dip, which would be less satisfying but potential more cost/time effective.

After it's stripped it'll be paired with a Hed road fork (assuming it's compatible with external headsets) and adorned with 2x10 SRAM and Easton parts that have been scaveneged at bargain prices. I'm not sure about the wheels yet, but they'll be something from this here fine forum.

Parts list so far:

58cm ZR 3.0 Road Frame
Hed 12D Road Forks
Sram S900 Cranks
Sram Force FD
Easton Ec70 Road Sl Bars
Easton EA90 Stem

So I still need to acquire shifters, rear derailleur, wheels, cassette, etc. Annoyingly, I have a rival 22 front brake and rival rear brake, so I'll go with whichever I can match first.

I'm happy to entertain suggestions.

No, I won't be bolting track ends on, sorry.

I had an idrive mtb in the same colours. It was a great bike but I was terrible at mountain biking, being far too careful.Thanks for the memory!

I had one too and managed to crack the seat tube (if you could even call it that) about one week after buying it second hand. Brooklyn potholes keep it real.

Nice project that. Looks surprisingly contemporary. I seem to remember that buttress seatpost thing being the weak point. That syncros stem was garbage, the aheadset was always coming loose.

I had one of these high polish GT MTB frames with yellow and red stickers, looked fabulous.

Built this one from a similar base frame and forks I grabbed of eBay for a steal. I stripped it the hard way with wet sanding at various grades and then Meguiars all metal polish to finish.

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Holy shit that is beautiful.

Yeah, I had a ball burnished '96 Avalanche and stupidly sold it. This thread will ultimately lead to me buying a mid 90s Zaskar.

That is awesome. Care to share your technique in a bit more detail? Or better yet, what would you recommend?

A lot of 'elbow grease' .. seriously.

I basically started with coarse grit paper to 'rip' the majority of the powder coat off, being careful enough not to cut through to the aluminium, as that would mean some deep scratches to remove with the grit I used. Then removed the remaining powder coat and any scratches in the aluminium with progressively finer papers. Always sanding in the opposite direction to the previous grade eg. with the grain and then across the grain. I went down to 1200 grit wet/dry as the final paper. Finally polished by hand with the Meguiars.

The bike was a parts bin special, so sanding and final polishing took place as and when I had a free 5 minutes over many months so I can't suggest how long it actually took.

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Yeah, I don't think I'll be able to sand through the factory paint job. I've imagined slathering on some nitromors and then gently using a scraper to get off most of the paint and then sanding my way to shininess. From what I've read this method won't be particularly easy/effective and there's an obvious risk with using a paint scraper on an alloy frame, so I'm considering alternatives.

Nitromors couldn’t strip skin off custard. Waste of money

Yeah, that seems to be the consensus. Bloody EU over-regulation or something like that.

I'd try to get it sandblasted and then doing the polishing myself

Progress report: yikes.

making omelettes, without breaking eggs? etc... it's all progress.

Haha. Yes it's bobbins, and you're just left with annoying slightly stinging sludge.

Don't torture yourself mate, try this stuff. To be honest, I think the people who hate nitromors etc are just used to how paint strippers used to be and don't have the patience for the modern stuff. I've stripped 2 bikes down to bare metal with this stuff. It's slow, but it's infinitely quicker and easier than dry sanding and inhaling all that sweet sweet paint dust.

Just give the paint a quick skim over with a rough grit to break up the surface, and then slather this shit on. Repeat each time it absorbs, then scrape the paint off with a knife. If you're patient and give it a good few hours to absorb, the paint will peel straight off.

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Yeah, ^ that's the plan of attack when I get home today.

Necessity is the mother of intervention.

Good progress. Now make it SHINY!

I have a seatpost you can, ahem, practice on?

Ha, actually, I could probably sort it out for you. Seems like a job for the detail sander which I purchased out of desperation for this project.

Thanks, that's kind.

But, inspired by writing that ^^ comment I got out the Dremel, a felt wheel, and some Peek polish.

It did nothing for the insertion zig zag scratches but the rest of the post came up mirror finish. Only took about ten minutes. Amazing.

I'm going to get some fine grain sand paper and do the job properly this week.

Now I'm looking at all my bikes thinking "What can I polish?"

I realise this comment needs pics. Will fix soon. I wish I'd taken a before picture...