Can You Build A Full Suspension Mountain Bike In Your Garage? | Blake Builds An MTB!

Welcome back, you beautiful people. I'm back in the garage, but today I'm building something a little different, but kind of the same. I've built a hardtail in the garage, but how hard is it to build a full suspension bike? Oh, I cannot wait. But I'm going to build a jig this time, because last time I didn't. It's a trail killing machine. Right, got bits of steel here. We've got 80 mil, 40 mil. This is going to be a jig. Now, in the previous build I did, did it in here, there was no jig whatsoever. And I ended up calling it the crab because it was, let's just say it didn't like going in a straight line. It actually rode in a straight line, but it was all twisted and cockeyed, and that's not good. So, I've got this, 80 mil, 40 mil, and I'm just going to weld them, and that'll be the rear. That's going to be the BB. That's going to be the front. Can't wait. So, what I'm going to do is, I'm going to make a fake hub right here. I'm going to weld that, so that's going to be my fixed point on my jig. So, I can actually use this in the future if I want to build another one. So, what I can do is, you can put that on there like that, and you can get your head angle. 72, 69, that's a good number. Then in the middle here, I've actually got these plates like this, and I've got some big bolts. So, they're going to be sandwiched, but these can be moved along. My BB is going to be here, so I can adjust my BB length to however I want it, and then again on the rear for the hub, I'll have a fake hub in here, so when it comes to building the rear triangle, I can do that. I bought some new safety glasses. I think I bought them because I wanted to look more sophisticated in this build. You ready for it? Here we go. Hair protection. Sophisticated. Big words. I don't have any big words. Got the fork in there. Just want to see before we go and get a sandwich. So, that's what's going to lock it in place. See, and I can totally just move it. So, if I put the laser on, it should run directly in the center of this because, well, I've measured it loads and loads, and this is all married up perfectly. Hey, I've got a head tube here. So, I've got multiple sizes, but I think I'm going to go with this one, and that can just, and then I can clamp it all down using this as the jig. That's a very expensive jig, but that's how I'm going to get a head angle. Ream that thing out. All of this to make a frame, and this is probably not super precise. It's precise, but not super precise, but it's definitely going to help me keep everything in line, and I've used the laser, and if the laser's like, you know, the laser line is everything is bang on. If it looks good to the eye, then it's good. Look at that. We done boo-boo. I measured it wrong. Totally out. I've done another boo-boo. I forgot to do the diameter of the hole again. Can we see your mistake? Yeah, look, you can't. You can't see it, because the hole's up here. It's at the edge of my, look, see it? See that little hole there? It's there, not there. Oh, well. Wouldn't be a great build, eh? Wouldn't be a great build without a mistake. That's right, Nick. I knew the day. I just knew the day, that today would be the day I use these. I've been collecting these. Every time I get a new pedal, I collect all the spare pins. Look at that, Nick. So what I'm going to use these for is grub screw. The jig's turning in more of the work of art than the actual frame. I haven't got there yet, but it needs to be perfect. So that slides in. There's a bit of play. What I'm going to do is I'm going to drill two holes, thread them, and then I'm going to sink two of these in here, but probably at the back, or it doesn't matter where, but in there, so it'll lock it in place, because I need to somehow support the seat tube. And then, follow me. Over here, we have another little one. So this one, I'm going to weld it to there. So that's going to be stuck. And then, what I'm going to do is drill another little hole and put another one there. And then on the end of this, follow me. We'll go over here into this. Now this is a old Halo Hub 20 mil spacer. It's nice and tapered, because that means it'll fit in there and then get all level. And then that, I'm going to fix this to this rod here, and then I can move it in and out to make this level. And this is all going to be locked onto there like that. Right, let's just do that then. I'm really happy with this. This has worked out well. I can adjust my BB height. I can make sure I can get the right seat tube angle. I got my rear right here with the hub for the triangle. We've got that up there. I think it's time to start creating the frame. Yes! That took ages. Right, I'm going to try and make this a reality and see if it can actually turn out to be exactly what is on this whiteboard, on the jig that I've made, and the internet, and everything. All right, let's get it. So I'm using a donor frame, the Kona Stinky Deluxe. Now, I'm a big fan of the Stinky, the Kona, because back in the day of the Kona clump team, which was free ride and all that rad jazz, absolutely loved it. So I'm using this as a donor because I want these rockers. There's one thing I need to do, and to get it right, is this eye to eye length right here. So from the rocker to the main pivot down here, I need to know this and just copy and paste and put it on my bike, because without that, I don't think this four bar linkage is going to work with this rocker. It's now day three of the build, and I'm going to need a little bit of help from an old pal of mine, Paul from BTR. He's been producing beautiful handcrafted mountain bike frames since 2011, and definitely a guy I have some questions for. But first, I need a hand bending some tubes. So Paul's just machined that probe down. Basically that goes inside the tube, and it goes all the way to the point where it's going to bend and stop it from creasing, hopefully. Yeah, so that basically goes inside the tube while it's bending, and then it helps support the inside of the tube there to stop it getting kinked. It'll also stop that getting squished down as well. So I thought we'd just come here and just bend it. No, I've got a question for you. Because I'm building a full sus, linkages. Now, I'm going to go with a four bar linkage. Easy, harder, more complicated? Yeah, it's definitely more complicated. There's more pivots and more things to get straight, more flex. Everywhere there's a bolt, you've got a little bit of flex in the bolt. All the bearings, they're pressed into something and so they can move around in where they're pressed. There's a little bit of movement in the bearing races. So using rod ends is a bad idea? Pretty much, yeah. Oh, man! The weather out there is incredible for building a frame. Now, a wealth of knowledge, Paul. Thank you very much. He's helped me bend this post, this tube that's going to go there. I like the bend. It just gives it a bit more character. Maybe we should name it after this bend. Anyway, thank you very much for that. And now I reckon it's time to start cutting some tubes and notching some tubes. Right, we've been here for 20 minutes. I'm slightly anxious. I think I'm overthinking everything, but I don't want to mess up a cut. I've cut it once and I'm a bit nervous. So I've got my notch. Now, Nick has said, no, it's right, you just mirror that. Obviously, but I was thinking like, no, it's up backwards. If I cut this out, that should fit in there like that. Right, because I'm using mild steel, there's a join here. This is where they fold it and join it and turn it into a tube. So that is a weld line. And I don't want it on the front because if you have it on the front, when you sat on your saddle, the pressure you're forcing down is pushing your seat post like this. You don't want that in the front because it'll just crack along the seam and I don't want that. So I'm going to put it on the back that I've just done in my first big mistake. I'm using different pipe. That's, what size is that? That's the one? This is the, I've got, luckily I've got enough for my top tube, I hope. Because I'll be getting back- Is that the top tube stuff? Yeah. Doesn't matter. Isn't that your first mistake? First mistake in this frame making. Today. Today, so it's my eighth. Well that goes on there like that. And that goes on there like that. Oh, Nick, I love it! I absolutely love this process, dude. I get teary-eyed and goosebumps all over my body. Oh, that fits like an absolute glove. You can build a jig in your garage, man. Just got to put your mind to it. Love it. So this is my top tube. I'm going for a medium-sized frame because I'm a small dude. Well, that's not small. I'm like average size. I'm not small, I'm average. An average brain as well. Anyway, 592.71. No, yeah? You just had a bit of weld in there, though. Oh, dude. Fiddle sticks. Look how short it is. Anyway, it's been a really good day. On that note, I'm going to go to bed. I'm going to order some more pipe, tube. See ya. I've got to make sure I get this right because if I don't get this right, the suspension's not going to work. You're used to that with a hardtail. I'm used to that with a hardtail, but I don't want the bike to be eating itself now, do we? This part is quite detrimental because this is my main pivot bearing. This right here, I just shrunk a BB, and it looks ugly, but it will look good after this. Now I'm going to cut a 40mm hole all the way through because that's 40mm. That's going to sit in there, but this piece right here, I'm going to keep this as a bridge between the BB and my main pivot bearing because I can't have it directly onto my BB. I don't want it to be. Cool. It's sunny out there, isn't it? Oh, yeah. That's good. That's really good. I'm nervous because I'm cutting the top tube, and I don't want to mess up yet again. This point right now is very important to get right. Everything needs to be lined up. So, Paul reminded me to drill a hole, a little three-more hole, places where the gases can escape so it doesn't pop your weld. So I'm going to do just that. Perfect opportunity before I close this up. Dude, I'm excited. We've got all this tacked up. We need to cut and make this spindle here enough for it to grab for my main pivot. But yeah, I like it. I don't have a lathe. I just don't have a lathe. I've got friends that got lathes, but I can't just keep going there. So I went to where I bought all my steel from, and they had these sockets, like nut sockets, extension pieces. And these are bang on money to go in there like that. See that? So they hold the original bolts that holds the rocker to the frame. But I'm going to sink this in a bit of tube, and that is going to be my inserts to the tube, which I can notch out over here because it's not going to be on the outside. It's going to be recessed into the seat tube. But I don't want to hinder where the dropper's going to go because if I do it, my dropper's going to be like flipping up here. So that's my theory. But that looks quite cool, doesn't it? I like that. I like that a lot. Ah, why do I keep touching stuff? Time to... Oh my gosh, look at those little spot welds in there. All right, that's probably the best little spot welding I've ever done. So, I was thinking, oh, I'm going to need to make another jig. But Nick, actually, this goes to Nick, because he said, oh, just use your seat tube jig to hold on your pivot point. And I was like, flipping heck yes, Nick. Dude, that's ridiculous. So how hard is it to make a full suspension bike in your garage? It's actually quite hard. It's really hard. It's a lot of mind games, a lot of maths, a lot of angles of the fanned angles. But I want day five, solid five days, plus a few evenings. So if you were to do it in your garage, I wouldn't recommend it. Don't take it from me. Do it if you want to. It's a project, whatever. I'm going to use these from my old dirt jump bike from a Saracen ALX. So what I'm doing is, I need to put in a piece where the chain stays going to mount and the seat stays are going to mount. So I ventured down the road to my very good neighbor, Dave. Dave Jacqueline. This gentleman right here. That's Dave Jacqueline. Come here, because we want to machine this down. And Dave has one of these. We are such hobbyists. It's amazing. This is the spindle to my main pivot. So we've got to cut it and then we've got to run a thread through it as well. Sounds amazing. Hey, oh look at that little wheel movement. Oh dear, don't. Now that is a piece of engineering. Have a look what it looks like with the wheel in it, doesn't it? Yeah. Was this 2075? Yeah. You've got the clearance here. Nick. Dude. That's a big boo-boo. Nick. We've actually done the biggest boo-boo ever. You can't presume. This is the biggest blunder. I've done so much work and I thought I could just use these rockers, blah, blah, blah. And they're probably in the comments already. I got goosebumps. I got all cold. This is not going to work. It's not going to work with the length of these. These were designed for a 26 inch wheel. I'm going to go, I'm going to make this and then I'll think about this in a minute. Oh, bugger, Nick. You've pointed out the craziest thing. Just because, yeah, it's a blunder. It would have been a 27, 26. Park bike. That could still work. Nuclear vehicle like that, yeah. This is very Heath Robinson, man. This is where frame builders around the world will be going, bleh. So what I'm doing is giving myself some clearance. Like I'm whacking it with a hammer and it's not cracking. That's ridiculous. So I'm trying to make clearance for a 2.6. It looks so ghetto, doesn't it? It's so ghetto. Like all the intricate bits of my build are so ghetto. Like the rest of the stuff, like, oh, that looks cool. Then you look close and you see that. Now we're doing the chainstays. So that's going in there like that. I have to have multiple bends on this guy because I need some clearance for the crank arms. I don't want to be hitting them. I cannot believe it. Look at it. It's a thing of beauty. Tell you what, if you do it, you can put your mind to anything to create, what? You can, if you put your mind to it, you can do anything. I did a study engineering thing. I'm working on the chain, the seat stays. I'm working on the seat stays. I've actually swapped out these because I did make these chainstays, but they were a bit small and I was questioning myself and I thought, now they'll be fine. And then I got a fin over, good friend of mine from Full Factory Racing. Does a lot of suspension set up in the local area and everywhere else. He said, you should swap them out. So I've actually made some bigger ones. I've got some big tube here and they actually fit in there way nicely. Way nicely, way nicer. Now, working on the seat stay. Oh, man. Progress. And I haven't welded the frame fully yet, but what I have done is I have kind of finished the rear triangle and it looks cool, but I'm working on the rear shock. So there. So I need to find, I need to work this out and make a plate that comes across here, make this look beautiful. But look at the rear triangle. Look how cool this looks. Whoa, dude. Oh, I'm going to make this plate. It's time to weld the frame. It's been a long nine days and I feel like it's time to do all of this. I am so tired. I'm going to just run a time-lapse of me just fully welding this up. I've got a gusset to go in here. This little guy is going to go in there like that. Beautiful. Anyway, right. Run time-lapse. Look at her. She's good from far, but there's that old saying, nice from far, but far from nice. Oh, my welds are ugly. Anyway, after coming from the car to here, I'm at Bike Park Wales. I've actually named my bike. I like to name my bikes. I like to name everything, really, and I've named this one Willie. Why? Because of its rear end. After a famous trail over here at Bike Park Wales, Willie Waver, that's what the rear's doing. It's waving about, a bit fishy. That's not a good combo. Anyway, Willie over here. We're going to go for a ride and see if it'll stand its punishment out there on the trail. It's all right. I think we should just chuck it in the deep end and go ride some rough stuff. Maybe we start on a black. Not good advice, but that's what I'm going to do. Or maybe a red. Should we start on a red? Let's do a red. I don't want to jump in the deep end too quick. All right, let's load up. I don't want it to knock. What's that noise? Is that your bike? I think it's your bike. It's not, it's your bike. I even hit it with a hammer and it's still doing it. I have to sit to the side. Do you know what? It feels really plush on the rear. It's really nice and supple. I think I need to let out some air on the front. It's not balanced enough. Oh my goodness me. Oh, I'm actually blown away. I'm actually quite surprised. Wow, at first, not going to lie. I was full of anxiety with this whole thing just completely collapsing underneath me. I thought the rear end was going to shear off, but I sessioned a corner up there and I'm getting comfortable with it. I know where its limit is, I think. Like you don't push the rear too much. Front triangle, beautiful. The way it rides is actually super plush. And the issue where this is hitting here, it's actually saved by my tire hitting my seat tube, which is incredible. But I am stoked. Is that homemade? Dude, it's a garage made, man. Dude, that's rad. That was, that was rigid. Anyway, I'm stoked. Let's go and hit a black. All right, what is it like climbing? Well, it feels quite comfortable. The knocking noise, it's definitely annoying. Can you hear that? That's my crank arm hitting my chainstays. But if I sit to the left of the bike, it actually stops because of the flex. Climbing is all right. It's a bit squishy on the rear, but it climbs really well. Like it's quite a slippery, techy, rocky climb. But it gets me to the top part from that knocking noise. Oh wow, now I'm in a rut. So yeah, this is where it hits. There. Hits here. Look how close it is. The tolerances are, well, non-existent. Anyway, back to the top. It climbs. Apart from the knocking noise. Dude, that is incredible. How, hey? It felt so good through there, Nick. It felt like, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, like a real bike, which it is. I've made it, but it's from my brain. I had no drawings. I just wanted to build one. And this is what I've come up with. By using, it's a bit Frankenstein, using a bit of Kona and bit of Saracen dropouts out here, things I had in the junk drawer, and some mild steel. It's incredible. On that note, man, I cannot believe I built a full suspension bike in my garage, and it works. This is a very proud Blake moment. I am super stoked how this turned out. Now, I was full of anxiety. I was like, man, this thing's going to snap the first time I get on it, because things were rubbing. I had to cut out this chainstay, literally cut it out, change it, because the chain line was, I didn't take it into consideration. What went wrong? What is wrong? Because there's a lot wrong with the rear. The front triangle is incredible. I think that there is perfect for me. I'm not going to lie. I'm blowing my own trumpet, but that is perfect. It's pretty easy to make. That is really hard to make, because there's a lot of force when you're riding. Like I call this is willy, because it waves a lot at the back. My nice five-day of cranks are whacking my chainstays, which is not great. There's some rubbish marks there, but hey, prototype. Let us know in the comments down below if you want to see version two of this, mark two, because I'm going to keep the front triangle. I want to redesign the rear triangle. The cool thing about it is you can cut and change anything with steel. Oh, man, so stoked. Thank you very much for watching this incredible video of me going through some pain, sparks, tears, joy. And if you want to see more of Blake Bills, let us know in the comments down below, and we'll see you next time. See ya. Cup of tea, Nick? Cup of tea. Man, I'm stoked. It didn't even break, Nick. Yes. I'm going to sit down and just look at it for a bit, because my gosh, dear, it's so sexy.