* GROUND ZERO * (Now I can have a cold one!)

[NLCTVWguy]

My wheel builder will be so happy to get these, now that it's all cleaned up.

I was too busy to take a lot of pics but I partially disassembled and cleaned all the external parts of the Sturmey TCW coaster hub today. Stripped the rim (I have a great rat quality Schwinn S-5 rim if anyone's interested!) and actually saved every spoke... original butted Schwinn spokes from 1967. Great shape considering the rim looked quite rusty.

Cleaned the sprocket, covers, coaster arm, the shell, lubed it, and prepped it for paint. Painted the center of the hub.



I like how it came out! Black on the sprocket to match the sides of the front drum.



Now about that tank... I very lightly sandblasted it to try to clean it up. It's pretty well pitted. The right side tank perforated in a few tiny spots. Glad I'm not trying to sell it.

Now the big question: When I paint the tank, should it be all orange? Or black with just orange on the raised panels on the sides? It's getting white graphics and stripe...

I'm open to suggestions!

More tomorrow, stay tuned!
--Rob

[NLCTVWguy]

Update 5-23-11:

The wheels are off to the builder. Delivered the painted hoops, the Sturmey hub with all its hardware, the drum brake (stamped OMEON by the way??) and the spokes and nipples from the MTB wheels.

Should have results back in a day or two. We're doing a swap- I'm going to sandblast his buildoff frame for him.

I have to make a modification to the frame to shorten up the headtube, and then it should be final paint for the frame.

Things in the works: Making handlebar mounts to fit the OCC clamps. Finishing the seat assembly. Installing crank. Building a shifter (top secret project). Painting the tank.

And this:



Bike needed a little more street cred right? Found this in the woods where I work- the old plant has an 1860's stone spillway and millpond on site... people go back there and stuff gets dumped. Looks to be a wooden shelf from a big gas grill. Lovely wood slats - mahogany maybe? Anyway it's been out there a while and is nicely weathered without being rotten. I saw it, figured it's just about the perfect length for a bike rack, and grabbed it. Needs a little cleanup and modification but not much. Made me think of the wooden slat bed in a hot rod truck!



Stay tuned for more 2 wheeled adventures!

--Rob

[KOTA]

Colors are NICE!...Black and orange ALWAYS look good together. A flat bed, oh yeah!

[NLCTVWguy]

OK now that I can think again and form sentences... been killing brain cells from paint fumes ...

Decided to paint the tank black and do orange highlights on the raised side panels. Raining cats and dogs here again. Black industrial paint. Furnace room. Fun in a can. Don't try this at home.





Tore down the seat, trimmed my cloth cover down, spray glued the material and reassembled. Always makes me wonder how they built parts like this so cheaply in the 50's and 60's.




Picked a cool sticker out of my collection...



Got a lot done though its been a weird day:

Picked up 5 bikes from a donor for our bike share program... 1 Schwinn mountain bike, 2 Specialized, 1 Diamondback MTB, and something called an Asama Bahama....

Shipped out 3 front sprockets in the mail today. Might be seeing them on some buildoff bikes, who knows?

Sold one of those bikes but received back a bike I sold last week... an awesome ladies Panasonic 500 10-spd. Electric blue 80s-90's 27inch bike. The girl who bought it decided a mountain bike would be better. So she basically traded up to the Schwinn Mesa- a really nice front-suspension bike. I quickly threw a rear tube in it and put it on the road.

Bike shop called me up (probably because I have more bikes than he does ) for some guys looking for an old frame for a fixie. The young guys were missionaries and total gearheads. Sold a 1974 Schwinn LeTour frame that's been gathering dust for a VERY long time. Almost sold one of my Continentals but alas, they remain unsellable.

Almost threw my back out removing one of the pedals on the LeTour. Good thing we did, as there was no way they were going to remove that with normal tools. A 15mm wrench with a pipe on it was required to remove the stuck old pedal. I hope they have better luck with the bike.

Then, my wheel builder sees one of my old mountain bike frames and wants that: a grey and yellow-green Marin "Lite" mountain bike circa 1987. So that will be going over to his cool little basement shop for rebuild and maybe some parting out... crazy laydown old style triathlon bars on it.... a weird collectors item from the early mountain bike era.

I'm exhausted writing it all down!
--Rob

[NLCTVWguy]

Lots and lots and lots to go over and update...

A new shifter, frame issues resolved, fork assembled, crank installed, so much done today.

Here's a teaser pic:




The real wheels are coming soon...

--Rob

[KOTA]

Absolutely LOVE it!

[herr_rudolf]

Orange & black.
Love it.

[NLCTVWguy]

More pics of today's mockup- All these pics are with some old mountain bike wheels I had hanging around. The rear dropped in nicer than any bike I've assembled in a long time.




The progress in the last 2 days has been amazing! Some of the stuff that got done:

Cut the headtube down to fit the shorter welded steer tube from the OCC fork. About 1/2 inch taken off the bottom of the frame.

Ground out the welds on the inside of the head tube, because the bearing cup wouldn't quite sit straight. The brazing is very thick inside each tube joint.

Used one of the triple-tree handlebar clamp blocks in the vise to support the lower chain stays, and crunched the tubing on the lower stays to ensure clearance for those 24x3 tires. Repainted the whole frame (and then it got a big gouge in one of the top tubes, of course...).

Built a shifter by grinding and threading the thumb lever of an old Sturmey trigger shifter. Cut 1/4-20 threads on it (M6 would work well too). The shifter material is very hard and smooth and I had to "start" threads by touching the sides of the lever with the grinding wheel to make little cuts. It's also rather hard to hold it in a vise because you can't grip the lever directly and the whole thing is springy. A piece of 1/4 inch threaded rod and a tubing bender created a shape that steps outboard from the frame, then back towards the rider. My machinist friend at work had a "3" ball from a pool table sitting on his workbench and said I could use it. Perfect, a 3-speed with a 3-ball. Turns out that the plastic they're made out of is very easy to drill and tap. I went for a hole 90° from the number so it shows on the side.




Assembled the crank and sprocket, no issues. Lots of spacers to push it to the drive side for fat-tire clearance. Installed the crank. Cleaned up the whole bottom bracket set on the wire wheel, mostly came out rust free. One bearing ball kept insisting on popping out and going in the dirt. No issues with clearance or assembly. Finally got to see those kool pedals in action.





Got my seat mounted on it, looking good. Got my spokesmodel to show off the new ride!




Found the perfect base for the wooden rack. This oldie but goodie has been in my basement at least 10 years, no idea what it's from. With the added brake bridge on the frame, and gentle re-tapping of the dropout holes for M6 threads, it looks like it never left. The wood deck may be done in another day or two.



Fork assembled, bearings tight, hardware installed, stole bearings out of a donor bike, triple tree tightened up with new high strength bolts, found a Stingray handlebar and stem to get a feel for the angle and height. Found a hideously ugly pair of brown-orange grips... I might keep em. They're awful. Finally got to sit on it. Looking a little rough the morning after a long night shift... bike looks good though.




Tank pieced together, reinstalled with its kind of trashed retaining screw/reflector things. Need to mount the back of it a little more securely. Not much metal left back there. No detail work done yet on the tank. The black I think will be a keeper.





Stay tuned for more updates!!!!

--Rob

[cody-james]

looks awesome but did you steal my murray?

[NLCTVWguy]

looks awesome but did you steal my murray?

The best bikes are always stolen!

[xddorox]

Wow the color combo comes out great without looking "Halloweenish". Love that shifter.

[SCHWINNRAY69]

Diggin' it Reminds me of a Harley...orange and black

[NLCTVWguy]

Diggin' it Reminds me of a Harley...orange and black

Thanks! Now that we're seeing it in paint, that's true, it does look like Harley's colors. My wife's even cool enough that she brought me back a shirt with those colors from the Harley factory in York, PA, in 1993! Her company at the time was a supplier of instruments to H-D.

That wasn't the intent of the work but I'll go with it for a couple reasons. The town where I'm doing most of the work has orange and black as their school colors. And what's cooler than old industrial machinery? The orange is Allis Chalmers tractor orange, and the black is Rustoleum Industrial Enamel black... seems appropriate since I work in one of the oldest continuously operating industrial sites in the country (making paper since 1860).

Today I got the rear rack put together. Separated and cleaned up the wood slats, and like most stuff on the bike, they looked better after an encounter with my wire wheel.



Cut to length...



Test fit:


Cross braces mounted, all stainless hardware.



Mounted to the rack with custom bent brackets.



Installed. I like the look!



This will be a busy weekend coming up, hopefully some of the remaining details will come together.
Lots more to come!

--Rob

[NLCTVWguy]

Wow the color combo comes out great without looking "Halloweenish". Love that shifter.

Thanks! Here are some of the pics of how the shifter was built.



Ground the lever and ran a 1/4-20 die over it, then fitted a 1/4 inch coupling nut.

Drilled and tapped the awesome 3 ball for 1/4 inch threads.




Bent up a length of threaded rod using a tubing bender. One kick out and one 45° bend back.




2 layers of heat shrink tubing over the shaft.




After a great deal of trouble and arguing with a bolt, the shifter wrapped around the frame. That part wasn't fun.



Finished shifter swings from just behind the fork in 1st gear, to about 6" in front of the seat post in high.



The actual connection to the rear hub will be a little challenge, but I do have a frame mounted cable stop from a CCM Galaxie 3-speed that may come into play. A Schwinn or Raleigh style cable run with a fulcrum wheel will probably not be able to clear the rear tire.

--Rob

[Hooch]

looking great rob!
now I figured you would have painted your bike 1972 schwinn burgundy! wernt you collecting a bunch of bikes that color once?