Titus RacerX restoration

[Mars1967]

Hi Guys. 

I bought a Titus RacerX to rebuild for my son. It was fairly beat up and had seen some hard use and little maintenance. I had to do a full rebuild including a respray of the frame, chain-stay and seat-stay (and a bunch of smaller components like the crankset etc.) I also replaced all the pivot bearings on the rear suspension and the bottom bracket.  I serviced both the shock and fork. Everything was cleaned and polished as I went along. I am quite happy how it turned out. 

Edited July 5, 2021 by Mars1967
Text moved to middle of post

[Mars1967]

I really don’t know why the text jumped to the middle of the photo’s?

[DieselnDust]

Great bike!

[Mars1967]

Thanks

[DarkWing77]

Wow this is a real impressive restoration! Would love to see what the bike looked like before you started! Well done! ????????????????????????

[Hairy]

This was once my dream bike to own!

[Mars1967]

5 hours ago, DarkWing77 said:

Wow this is a real impressive restoration! Would love to see what the bike looked like before you started! Well done! ????????????????????????

Thank you

[Kuys]

jo, looks really good!

 

I used to drool over those bikes in the early 2000's. 

 

Would be nice to see "before"  photos?

[Mars1967]

Sadly I am not good with taking pictures. It is stupid actually as it detracts from the overall impact of the project. I spent three years building a Porsche Spyder 718 RSK replica and there is exactly one photo of me working on the car. Personally I prefer to do the work. So unfortunately I did not take any before pictures in good light to show the condition of the bike.

It had many scratches and marks from cables rubbing and the carbon fibre on the seat-stay was full of scratches through the gel-coat. Here and there the scratches extended into the carbon fibre but fortunately not enough to compromise the integrity of the carbon fibre and fortunately in less visible areas. I had to fill a few small spots with resin to get it smooth. First, I masked the carbon and sandblasted the aluminium parts. These were primed and sprayed with a metallic silver base coat. Then I removed the masking and did the whole seatstay with plastic primer and three coats of clear 2k. The chainstay also took a beating. I sprayed it with two coats of metallic silver base coat and two layers of 2K clear coat after proper sandblasting.

Due to the fact that Titus was a small boutique bike company in the US, which folded in 2009, there is preciously little information on the Internet. I could get no designs of their logos. I had to take artist lay-out paper and trace the logos by hand on the frame. A friend of my wife does graphic design. She replicated the designs perfectly. A guy at the paint shop does his own custom painting and offered to make the decals for me. 

I had the frame sandblasted with a very fine medium and then primed and used the same metallic silver base coat as on the seat and chain stays. I did two coats of silver and then applied the decals. I learnt a valuable lesson here. Next time I will use a flat silver as base before masking as it was an absolute b*tch to get the decals to stick to the metallic silver. Very interesting. At first I thought the vinyl was defective but it worked fine on a flat colour. Another issue could be that the lines are relatively thin with a small surface area to stick. 

I eventually managed to get them down properly (or as best I could anyway). Any bleeding between such high contrasting colours will be very visible and would look terrible. As a matter of fact I thought that I was going to get serious bleeding. 

I then sprayed the black base coat in very light layers to try and avoid bleeding. I was very surprised and relieved to see how little bleeding there actually was when I removed the decals. Another nerve wrecking experience, as the slightest slip of the hobby knife could ruin the fine lettering. At least the decals came off easily. ???? The up-side is that the metallic silver logos really “pop”. 

I then painted two coats of clear 2k. The first, a light coat, and the second a heavy coat. The paintwork is not absolutely perfect but then I do not spray paint regularly enough to keep my skills sharp. I also do not have access to a spray booth so I had to flat out some spots where dust invariably settled. In the end it is about the overall appearance of the project when everything is assembled. I seriously need to suppress my OCD and realise that it is probably the best job possible given my equipment.

Edited July 10, 2021 by Mars1967
spelling

[DJuice]

Bike looks great!!

The skillset of Hubbers, amazing.

[Mars1967]

Thank You

[Slowbee]

 

oh man such cool pics.

 

But I see you yours and I raise in mine ...

 

[Slowbee]

If anyone is wanting to buy one, drop me a message. I am open to offers, otherwise it is going in the classifieds.

 

[Shebeen]

On 7/10/2021 at 7:23 AM, Mars1967 said:

 

Due to the fact that Titus was a small boutique bike company in the US, which folded in 2009, there is preciously little information on the Internet. I could get no designs of their logos. I had to take artist lay-out paper and trace the logos by hand on the frame. A friend of my wife does graphic design. She replicated the designs perfectly. A guy at the paint shop does his own custom painting and offered to make the decals for me. 

 

probably a bit late here, but they definitely did not fold. eventually got bought by the on-one/planetx crowd and are still around.

you might have been able to get logos form them as they seem to have stuck with the brand roots. 

https://www.planetx.co.uk/titus

[Slowbee]

You can also buy all the suspension bits and bobs from the planet x as well.

 

Bit pricey - but doable.

 

[DieselnDust]

wowzeers that is a heck of a nice restoration job. Superb machine for a young teenager as well. Those bikes were probably one of the few FS XCo bikes that didn't bob and still delivered the best tractive effort. Wishing your kid many many happy km's on that bike, signed <envious>