Illustrated Service Guides  & Vintage Bicycle Repair

  Here I am, building up bikes that could have just as easily been scrap metal.   In the past I've really tried not to deal with bikes in poor condition, but lately I've found some interesting projects.  Most of these project bikes are rare or at least somewhat valuable, so I'm going to be putting the effort in to make these decent again.  One could loosely term what I'm doing with the Apple and the B-6 as "restoration", but these bikes will use some reproduction parts, as well as some parts that are not year-accurate.   But at least it's a better use of these bikes than sending them to the scrapper to be melted down.

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1968 Schwinn Apple Krate

    I didn't mean to buy this bike.  Really I didn't.  I went over to this guy's house to buy a Schwinn Exerciser for $20, and maybe a rough Coppertone Traveler.  I knew he had a bunch of bikes up on CL, but I didn't see this one until I got there.  Once I got to his garage I just pulled out my wallet and started whipping out money.  Dropped $150 on this Apple, which to most people looks like something hardly fit for the scrap metal bin.

     It's an original bike, complete except for the seat and pogo sissy.  Pedals rusted solid, cranks and MAG sprocket roasted.  Bars bent all to heck.  Stem had to be removed with a 3 lb. hammer.  But the seatpost came out with almost no effort, which was a big relief.  Got the headset locknut off with an impact wrench.  Top cone will likely require the angle grinder.   And the axle nuts on the Atom will also likely require a visit from Mr. Angle Grinder.  Faceplate screw on the Stik is siezed, still soaking in Liquid Wrench.

    Springer looks okay.  Atom looks okay.  Chainguard looks okay.  Badge is amazingly nice.  I have a replacement MAG with cranks, a '68 stem and bars in great shape, and orange repop grips that I bought on a whim.  I should have some nice bow pedals knocking around as well.  Should be able to save the rear hub and build another wheel around it.

      Going to color match Kool Orange locally (I have an original '68 Orange Krate awaiting refurbishment before it goes to a new home.) and turn this Apple into an Orange.  Not only is it easier to paint the solids than the candy colors, the Orange is just so iconic, and well, Orange.

     At this point i have the bike nearly stripped.  Once the springer steer tube is freed, then I'll start in on stripping the paint.

     The other odd thing about this bike is that it was packed full of sand.  The shifter body, the frame tubes and bottom bracket, the tires.  I'm actually going to have to vaccum the basement.

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    Got the frame completely stripped.  Had to take an angle grinder to the top cone to free the springer steer tube.  Also chopped the Atom axle nuts with the angle grinder, knicked up the axle a bit, hopefully not enough to matter.  Took a dremel to the Stik face plate screw, made a slot for a flathead screwdriver, and managed to get the screw free.

    Once I got the Atom apart I found that it was nearly full of sand.  How this thing got packed with sand, man, I don't want to know.  Very minimal openings for a speedo driver and fairly tight clearances around the brake plate.

      Got the Kool Orange color-matching set in action.  Should have paint in a week or two.  For now I'm going to box up the pieces and stow the bike away for a bit.

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    Now I have 5 cans of Kool Orange paint from Sherwin-Williams Automotive.  Time to get the frame down to bare metal.  Also picked up a decent replacement Stik-Shifter (thanks, Hooch!).  Decals are on the way from Hyper-Formance. 

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-------------------------------------------------------Finally got the frame stripped to bare metal and into primer.  Ended up doing a lot of wet sanding with emery cloth, which works pretty well.  Left a "truth window" of original finish that will be hidden by the badge.  Two coats of primer, both Sherwin-Williams automotive.  Self-etching and high-fill.  Can't wait to lay on the Kool Orange.  Once this thing has paint and decals, the mechanicals will be a snap.

Four coats of Orange.  Turned out pretty good.  Couple slightly weak spots on the underside, but overall it's decent.  Now the frame is hanging up in the garage, going to see if I can keep wrenches away from it for a week or two.  But man, I sure want to start tossing parts on it right now.

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1947 Schwinn B6 (?)

     I wasn't looking for this bike.  It found me.  Very rough 1947 Schwinn Heavyweight that could well have originally been a B6.  Originally a burgundy / white bike, and springer looks to have the same paint under the rattle-can black repaint.  This bike is going to be built up as a light green / coach green with red pinstripes B6.  Getting the green paint from Vintage Schwinn (linked on my Kool Links page.)

     Locking springer had key busted off in the lock.  Was able to rotate into the locked position and then extract the key nub with a small hardened steel pick.  This lock takes an Illinois brand key, not the usual Yale, and I tracked down a couple blanks so I can file my own replacement keys from the nub.

    This is going to be a replace-storation bike.   Going to be basically starting from the frame and fork and working up from there.  Going to have to throw a lot of parts at it.  Not the ideal way to do it, I know, I know.   But lots of this stuff I already had laying around.  Had a chainguard, sprocket, Persons repop pedals, repop dark green grips, light cover, decent period cranks, and a re-coverable Persons seat. 

   Red tires are on the way.  Just picked up a 50s era tank and a (hopefully) rebuildable Delta horn.

   Need to track down fenders, decent drop center rims / wheels, a cool badge (73mm screw spacing), and a 6 hole rear rack.

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        Just got  a pair of reproduction B-6 fenders from Maple Island Sales, they look great.  Also snagged a front sprocket and a lense for the Fenderlite from Maple Island.   Got red Grand Tycoon tires from Missing Link.

       Got the bike stripped down to a bare frame.  A previous owner had filled up the bottom bracket shell with grease.  It was just solid.  Haven't poked around in the other tubes to see if those are filled with grease too.  Ah, things to do.  Once the weather shapes up I'll strip the frame to bare metal and get a coat of red oxide primer on it.

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     Here's an image from the '46 catalog of the B6, ripped directly from Tom Findley's awesome website.  I'm going for a green / light green / red pinstripe scheme on mine.

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1959 Schwinn Tornado, coaster brake Middleweight

    Picked this bike up many months ago.  Probably should have just let somebody else snag it off of CL.   Guess I was having one of those days where the desire to buy a Schwinn outweighed the desire to buy a good Schwinn.   This bike looks like it was left out in the rain for a decade or more.  There's rust all over the frame.  Amazingly the stem and seatpost came out without a fight.  Rims are pretty rusty, and both hubs have corrosion.  All the chrome is shot.  Neat frame, but dang, where to start.

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     At first was thinking about just bringing this bike back in black.  Given, these weren't offered in black, but hey.  But then I got to thinking about saving the patina.  Because you can't buy ugly like this ugly.  And I have this extra springer fork around.   And this ridiculous 24" x 3" flamed rear tire.  And some other odds and ends.

    So here it is mocked up as a rat (pardon the clutter).  Going to have to bend the frame a bit to clear the rear tire.  Heavyweight rear fender fits in the middleweight frame with just a bit of effort.  Front wheel is an S-7 with old skinny aftermarket tire.  High flange front hub with HD spokes.

    Considering running an S-2 up front so I can match up the tires (there's a 26" flamed tire that goes with the fatty 24"), and with the S-2 I could also run the matching blue HW front fender.  But I like the hot-rod contrast of fat to skinny tires.  So we'll see.

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    Rebuilt the rear wheel a couple times.  Built it up around a Bendix smooth shell 28.  The existing rim was a bit too hoppy once it was built, so rim swapped for the matching front hoop.  The new hoop is a bit better, but is still a bit wonked.  22 tooth cog on the rear, steel brake shoes inside the hub.

    Had to do some minor re-working of the rear fender to get the tire to clear.  Minimal clearances with fender, frame, and stays. 

    Pedals are weathered and worn Phantom pedals.  Chain is off an Exerciser.  Springer is late 70s Schwinn.

    For the time, leaving off the chainguard and front fender.

    Took the Tornado for a test ride today, maybe half an hour of noodling around the neighborhood.  Rides nice for what it is.  Pictures don't do it justice.  The crustitude is epic.

   Ended up tossing on the guard and front fender.  Chainguard required a bit of filing to clear the rear tire.  With the exception of the 24" x 3" rear tire, I managed to keep this one all vintage.

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1954 Schwinn Jaguar, 3 speed Heavyweight. 

This bike is hammered.  Looks pretty much like a beat up Corvette, but it's a heavyweight frame sporting deep heavyweight fenders and S-2 hoops.  Probably should have passed this one by.  But the frame and fork are there, the 3 speed hub is there.  Caliper brakes are there.  Front wheel mostly okay, rear rim will have to be swapped out.  Previous owner welded some seat supports on the frame.  Front fender cut in half.  All the good stuff is missing.  Felt that a bike this rare needed some positive attention. 

    Here's a snap of the '54 catalog, the Jaguar was the cover bike.  Long way from where this one is.  Look at how happy that kid is.

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    Whoo!  Just picked up about 1.75 crusty Delta Rocket Rays on eBay.   What's with the .75?  That's just a top shell an a battery box with lens still attached.  But I've got a couple bottom shells around, so it works out great.  The crustier light will get tossed on the Jaguar (once it's converted to LED!) to complete the look.  (The better of the two will get painted and then lightly distressed to match the '55 Streamliner.  And also converted to LED.)

    Here's the Rocket Ray top shell after some green paint accented with white spatters.  There's a hole corroded through the side, so I'll be trying to get it rusty again.  Also sanded the high spots to bare metal (c'mon rust!) so hopefully it will looks as crusty / rusty as the rest of the Jaguar.  Draped a salt-water soaked paper towel over the shell, so we'll see how that goes.

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   24 hours later, after soaking a paper towel in salt water and draping it over the top shell, RUST!   I also took some #000 steel wool to the high spots and edges and basically everywhere before the salt soak, so there's rust happening in all the realistic places.

    It's strange that I care about this.

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1961 Schwinn Corvette 5-speed

   Just picked up this rough 5 speed Corvette.  It's missing the front rack, light, teardrop reflector, chaingaurd, starburst badge, script grips, cranks and pedals.  Fork is bent, frame was repainted years back, stem and derailleur (and most other parts) have nasty rust.  Seat is there, and it's rough. But the 5 speed stuff is there, the brakes are still intact, the rear wheel is still true and the stainless fenders should roll out nicely.  Going to soak this one in Liquid Wrench for a bit.

  If it wasn't such an unusual model I wouldn't have bothered, I'm a sucker for the odd-ball Schwinns.

   Good thing that the Kent swap meet is coming up, this project is going to require a bunch of parts.  In the interest of simplicity, likely going to bring this one back in black.  Dang, going to need some decals too.

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    Just picked up a fairly decent 1961 Traveler.  Going to harvest some parts for the Corvette: starburst badge, cranks, pedals, stem and bars and levers, and likely other small parts.  Ah, but don't worry, the Traveler will live to see another day, pirated parts will be replaced with non-1961 parts.

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     Kent was pretty much a wash parts-wise.  But sold about a grand worth of merch, so well worth the trip.  Just got a Corvette style guard from a Forum member.  And just got some "Lime Time" House of Kolor paint (thanks David!) that will likely end up on this Corvette.  The Lime Time looks to be a reasonable match to Flamboyant Lime,  so will likely go off the rails a bit on this one and do it up as a Lime.  Now I just have to wait for the weather.

    Still after a nice double-hinge front alloy rack if anyone has one for a reasonable price.

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     Aargh!  Just tried to remove the shifter and the wing bolt broke off in the shifter boss.  Upon closer inspection, there was a bubble inside the metal bolt where it broke, making it much weaker and almost certain to fail.  So now I've got to either extract a rusty broken bolt or braze on another shifter boss.  It's likely going to be easier to braze on a fresh shifter boss.  Still, what a pain.

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    Whoo-hoo!  Tried to drill out the broken wing-bolt, and it actually worked! 

     Also successfully removed the Starburst badge from the Traveler (hair dryer method), so that's one more part that I've secured for this project.

    Just finished stripping the parts off the frame.  Fork might be bent at the bottom of the steer tube, still have to get some tools on it to determine if it's toast or not.  Modified a Suntour 2-prong to remove the Atom freewheel.  Pie plate is torn up, alas.  But the hoops are surprisingly decent, at least mechanically.  And they might even clean up.

    To do:  Remove the braces and roll the fenders, polish out the gouges.   Locate an early 60s Huret rear derailleur.   Build the wheels.  Strip frame for paint.  Order decals.  Figure out a seat,  because if I go with the imitation Flamboyant Lime, ain't no S seat gonna match that.  Anybody out there have any success (or failure) painting a vinyl Mesinger seat?

Stripped frame and box of parts with some fresh parts tossed in.

I'm also thinking about getting a can of Eastwood Cadmium spray paint.  Yes, it's cheating.

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    Here's a page from the '62 Dealer Catalog, ripped from the Amlie-Hufford collection, of the 5 speed Corvette.  My bike used to look just like that, Radiant Green and all.  Sigh.

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   Just got the correct Huret rear derailleur locally from Meticon Bikes on SE Foster.  I told Seth what I was looking for in an off-hand way and a couple days later he finds one in a box of stuff that got dropped off.  What a great bike shop.