Obvious jokes aside…

This is my Cove Stiffee:

It's a great bike it really is, handles very well, I've ridden it in the Alps, Pyrenees, Moab etc and, over time, it's been gradually changed and tweaked.

Anyway, I rode it a couple of weeks ago for the first time in several months and the forks now need a service (they're RS Psylo SL's from 2002/3 but they've been regularly serviced and well looked after) and the brakes which have been plagued by sticky/lazy pistons for a while now also need a full overhaul.

So I've stripped it down to bare frame this afternoon and now I'm kind of wondering what to do with it. The frame is 2002/3 and has already been resprayed once. What to do with it?

Ignore the fact that it looks a bit tatty, get the forks and brakes sorted and rebuild?
Go for a frame respray, sort brakes and forks and rebuild?
Sell it as a frame/forks/seatpost combination for peanuts to someone as a hack/SS and transfer the bits onto a new frame?

Money is pretty tight thanks to redundancy and 3 months on the dole earlier this year so I'd like to avoid the new frame & forks route if possible. It's complicated by the fact that the frame is designed for 80-125mm travel (ie my Psylo's) and it really doesn't climb well in anything above 100mm. If the Psylo's are FUBAR'd then I'm a bit stuffed really cos the frame won't take more than 130mm at most which cuts out a lot of new adjustable travel forks.

I know it's old but it's still a great bike, it does exactly what I want, handles beautifully and it's still way more capable than I'll ever be. But (financially) it's probably worth sod all (anyone got any ideas what it might be worth??) cos it's old and limited in what forks it can take. So over to the ever helpful STW forum for thoughts as to what I should do with it? Ideas of SS'ing it or turning it into a hack bike will be treated with the contempt that they deserve… 😉

Keep it and rebuild it.
If the forks are shot some fairly recent revs or something like that can be adjusted within the travel range you want or just stick some bigger forks on – won't affect the waranty now.
Like you said its probably not worth much to sell and i bet its worth a whole lot more to you.
I've just re-built my 98 Zaskar and stuck some newer kit on it and some forks that are way more travel than when it came (63mm Judy XC's) but took it out today and it rides like a dream, I'm well happy with it.
Give it a new lease of life, will be cheaper in the long run, oh, and ditch the RF sticker on the top tube 😉

The frame is fine with forks up to 130mm so there's plenty of forks to choose from if the RS are shagged.

I've got Stiffee of the same vintage that is sitting about doing nothing. It's a medium which is a midges cock too large so I've got small now.

Don't worry about the paint work. Sort the forks and the brakes then ride it hard!!

New forks and shorter stem.

New forks and shorter stem.

Stem has been changed since that pic, it's running a much shorter Thomson now. And the main reason for being on here was to click through to CRC to look at forks!
Was looking on Argos earlier about resprays, I quite like this one:

Red is nice and everyone knows that red bikes are fast but I've got too many red bikes, thought a colour change might look quite good…

Looking at the set-up, I think you should sell the frame and get one that is the correct size! Your lower back must be made of play-doh to cope with the saddle height/bar height/reach, if the picture is anything to go by. Sorry, you may love it to bits, but it looks like you have out grown it it a long time ago.

What size do you reckon I need given that I'm 6'3"?
The stem has been changed for a shorter one – when that was taken I was doing long XC rides and wanted the extra reach.
I haven't grown or shrunk since buying it. 😉

looks like a large frame..? ride mine with the same seatpost extension, have a large and I am 6,2 …works perfect for me..
I would keep it and invest in a new fork….and if there is some cash left, in respraying it again…
the frame is only for 130mm travel—but the length of an older 130 mm marzocchi fork (from the time the frame was made) is 520mm…the length of a pike is 518 mm, it will fit perfect…if you get a U-Turn version you may turn it down to 120 mm for allround use, while having 140 mm for the descents…
my frame is taking a rest right now, hanging on the wall –but i will not sell it…I am sure I would regret it soon…..

If that saddle were placed any further back on it's rails, your bars would be in England and the saddle in Wales.

Try and get hold of a set of coil u-turn revelations James. 85-130mm travel, work really well. I have some sat here but the steerer will be about a foot too short for your bike 😉

Don't get a respray- Spend the saved money on kit.

I'd also get some nice new Revs, rebuild or new brakes, and that's it. Wouldn't bother with a respray, it looks nice as it is.

dont be a slave to fashion ,sort the forks and the brakes , colour change isnt worth the money , you said you love the bike why change anything at all

I've got a Cove of the same vintage and it seems to climb pretty nicely with the forks set above 100mm. I think you end up changing your technique slightly to compensate, and there are certainly bikes out there that are better at going uphill, but I've never found it a major issue, even with them wound out to 120 or 140mm.

I think getting some lightweight XC forks and giving it a nice looking but pricey respray is the wrong thing for such a bike to be honest. Also I don't get where you're coming from when you say it's incompatible with new forks – a lot of forks like pikes have a similar A-C height to older 130mm Z1s, and you don't have to run them at full extension anyway.

Yeah, you're right MrA, there are plenty of times when I've just left the forks alone and got on with riding it but it does climb better with shorter forks.
Doing a bit of research online now and what you and simondbarnes say is entirely correct – I guess being an XCer at heart I've never really looked at recent "trail" forks, I just kind of assumed from the proliferation of trail bikes and kit featured in mags etc that most forks were 120+ as standard (apart from the 80-100mm XC stuff I sort of know about already). As you can probably tell, I haven't bought a new MTB for years, all my recent bikes have been road or CX. 😳

I think what I'll do is send the forks off to TFTuned and see what they say. If they can be fixed then that's fine, it'll be cheaper than new ones. If not I'll buy some coil Revs from them, 85-130mm will be perfect.