1989 Wicked VS 1991 - different geo?

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Bigbead75

Member
Hello,

I have a 1991 Wicked that I love - looking to acquire another one, it's a 1989. I've looked for catalogues to do the research on my own but am not finding any '89 or '91 catalogues so nothing to reference. Does anyone know if there are differences in geometry or chainstay/seattube length between those two years? Just want to make sure I get the sweet ride of the 1991 with an '89.

Thanks in advance
 
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Bigbead75

Member
Retro Dude thanks for clarifying - super stoked!!! I'll follow up with some pics, it's going to be a beauty when I'm done!
 
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Bigbead75

Member
one piece crank said:
But, ‘89 was still Somerville MA.

I have an ‘89 catalog if you want me to look anything up.
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Hey, that would be cool - i just am curious about the specs for the bike and the geo/measurements. Though I haven't found a 1991 catalogue to compare it to, it would be a good resource. Thanks for your help!
 
I-ROBOT

I-ROBOT

Active member
Any geometry differences between the '89 and '91 Wickeds would likely be just in manufacturing tolerances and possible differences in butting of the tubesets from True Temper. I don't know if Chris changed any of the butting specifications over that period of time and it does not seem likely to me but I have no clear recollection of any substantial changes.
Welding is probably better on the '91's simply due to advancement of our techniques. I forget exactly when we got our Miller Maxstar welding machines but those were revolutionary for that time. They were among the first "inverter" type welding machines and they had pulsing units that could pulse the welding current up to 100 times per second. I developed a technique using a high pulse frequency and holding the filler wire against the edge of the tube miter instead of dabbing the wire in and out of the molten puddle which is the "traditional" mode of feeding wire into the weld. I could hold the bead width to +/- 0.005" and the rapid pulsing smoothed the contour of the weld to the point where it did not require any finish work and the "ripples" would disappear under the paint.
Also, at some point I did some research and changed the filler wire classification. Gary was using an ER70S-2 plain carbon steel filler rod which is commonly used on steel pipe welds in many types of industries. It is relatively cheap and available. I decided to switch to an ER80S-D2 filler rod which has a small amount of molybdenum in it (the "moly" in chrome-moly tubing) and it achieves a higher tensile strength. This was proven out when I met Dennis Klingman of Lincoln Electric who was their director of motorsports welding at the time. Back then, Indycar chassis' were constructed of 4130 tubing and the welds were not heat treated after welding. Dennis said their testing showed that this welding rod performed better than the standard ER70S-2 in ultimate strength and fatigue resistance for welds that were not heat-treated.
Any '91 model of steel bike is welded with the ER80 rod for sure. I want to say that this switch occurred in late "87 to early "88 but I simply don't remember for certain.

Enjoy
Scott
 
I-ROBOT

I-ROBOT

Active member
colker said:
Yes.
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It depends on how old the frame is. We changed the serial number nomenclature either in 1989 or 1990 to include a letter(s) at the end of the SN to indicate the frame size.

My Wicked has the SN 87777. It was the 777th frame produced in 1987. There is no size indicator included. I believe this continued through 1988. It may have changed when we started producing the Yo Eddy. Its possible that Team Comps had something added to their serial numbers to indicates that they were TC's since those frames were the top of the line during that time period (and considerably more expensive).

There is a member on this site who has some of the serial number record sheets that were produced early on. I'm not sure of his user name, possibly johnsonborne but I don't remember the exact spelling. I know he had posted photos of some of them years ago

I wish Chris had come up with serializing forks but that was never done. There are so many clones out there that it can be difficult to properly identify a Fat City built fork whether its a box crown, unicrown, standard Yo or Big One Inch.

Hope this helps
Happy Spring!
Scott
 
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Bigbead75

Member
Thanks again for the info Scott!

So 13499W is an '89 wicked but just trying to determine if the size is indeed 21".

Anyone?
 
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