Originally Posted by
owenmyers
I like the deore levers, shifters, gears idea. What fork should i get rock shox, sr, zoom? im on a budget. And lastly where is the best place to get rims.
If you're on a budget, again, I'd keep existing fork.
If you gotta have sproing up front, you'll likely want to replace the headset also, since you have a threaded one. Shop around for a good 80mm fork, maybe 100mm, although that'll jack your front end up pretty high.
As for rims, wheelsets Decatur linked are nice, but are disc only. You'll only be able to easily fit disc brakes to your replacement fork, not in back. Since you're talking about buying rims, CBO did have nice deals on non-disc XT hubs last I checked. For the rear wheel rim-brake rim, Universal Cycles has Sun Rhino Lites for $27.
If you're going to pick up rims, spokes and hubs independently it won't be very budget. If you're going to buy all new components a la carte it won't be very budget. I'd ballpark a lowend build with decent fork around $700, maybe. You would have to already know you love this bike to spend that much on it because after the build you'd be lucky to get $300 on it, I'd imagine.
Often times buying a complete from bikesdirect.com and pulling all the parts you need from it will be better than buying new a la carte. Just pull what you need, sell frame, maybe seatpost, etc after you've stripped it.