Help, Santana Dual Moto VPP Rebuild Kit

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ryckaert

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zonatandem

According to Mr. Bill, he builds the world's best tandems . . .
He should be able to supply parts for his Santanas too . . .

TandemGeek

Trying to get our Dual Moto back on the trail. If you know about these bikes, you know the rear suspension has issues. I was told by Bill that rebuild kits were produced for the rear pivots to get the bike useable again. He is saying a big pile of kits were sold and possibly someone has a stockpile.

I'm asking if anyone does. If not, it's off to the machine shop to try and put something together to fix the problem. Right now the rear assembly is very loose and moving from side to side. Dangerous.

Funny thing is the bike has really no miles on it. -Pete

My sympathies... you've got a tough nut there. A couple thoughts:

1. You might send a note to Rich Shapiro at Gear-to-Go Tandems (http://www.gtgtandems.com) to see if he has any leads. He is a Santana dealer who had a 1st Generation Dual Moto sitting in inventory for the longest time... long enough to be faced with questions from potential buyers about how to get replacement parts for the Outland VPP rear suspension.

2. You might also try sending a note to Santa Cruz bicycle's tech support guys to see if they have any leads. (http://www.santacruzbicycles.com/). Santa Cruz purchased the rights to the Outland VPP suspension a few years back and may have acquired some tribal knowledge on sources for replacement parts to support legacy Outland suspension systems.

3. If the Outland VPP rear suspension is anything like the earlier Ventana / Turner MFS rear suspension most of the parts that wear out are bushings that can usually be sourced from a variety of different suppliers once you have the correct dimensions. Same as the more recent systems that use quad-set bearings ILO bushings. Again, Santa Cruz should have all of those design specs. in their possession.

dbohemian

I would also suggest that potentially many of the bushing, bearings and fittings are stock items. When engineering something it is always easiest to source stock items if possible so a visit to McMasterCarr or a similar tooling supplier may get you what you need as long as you can measure the parts that were there in the first place.

Dave Bohm

ryckaert

I appreciate all the responses. Rich actually sold us the bike. We demo'd the yellow bike he has and we were hooked.

Best that we know the new patent holder uses a completely different design. The thinking is that single bike owners of the VPP had kits too.

McMaster. A great place to get things. Bill is saying none of what they have will do it, but it's been a while now. Basically looks like we have to tear the bike apart and see what we can do.

I'm trying to refrain from bashing Bill, but after spending over $10K on this bike and hardly even using it I couldn't have a worse taste in my mouth. Plus this is only one of three custom bikes purchased from Santana. -Pete

TandemGeek

Best that we know the new patent holder uses a completely different design. The thinking is that single bike owners of the VPP had kits too.

Understand about how Santa Cruz and Intense have reworked the design, but I'd still check to see what other intellectual property they ended up with when they purchased the rights. I've got to believe they either have the specs for the bushings or know who does.

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