First bike project...

[dillon_b12]

I found a girl's cruiser style bike in the shed of the house I currently rent and decided I wanted to do some work to it.

I'm having trouble identifying the bike since I basically have no experience with modifying bikes.

Got it back riding and pulled the bent fenders off.

I plan on welding a top tube in to make the bike into a men's. I may purchase or make my own triple tree set-up since I really like that look and want to lower the bike a little anyway.

Also, I like the look of the really fat tires that some of you guys are running, namely Thick Bricks. The only concern I have there is that this bike has 26x2.125" tires currently so I would have to go down to 24" wheels to run the Thick Bricks.

Are there any "thick" 26" tires out there?

Overall, I will be going for the cafe racer look.

 

[elvis51]

one way to convert a womens bike to a mens bike is to simply chop that top tube off, flip it over and rewled it up at the top!!! gives it a very cool look and alot of people have been very sucessfull at makin it look good!!!

Easy E

 

[sensor]

there are 26x3s but from what ive heard they might take some tweeking of the frame to get them to fit(im pretty sure bicycle rick has some bike with them......maybe he'll chime in)

 

[dillon_b12]

Yea I did a real rough photoshop today and it looks like I can just remove and rotate the top tube and it should look pretty nice. The 26x3s might not be necessary to get the look I want. I think the whitewalls are making the tires appear smaller than they really are.

 

[Big Fat Whitewalls]

Here's how I did mine. Dean
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=13710

 

[dillon_b12]

Well, I've handed this project off to a friend of mine (Gus). We completed the bike's sex change a couple days ago and it came out pretty nice. A buddy of mine gave me a newer cruiser of his since he bought a new Schwinn cruiser to put a motor in. We are all building motorized bikes.

We just heated the brazed joints, knocked the tube out with a mallet, played with the notches a bit and TIG'd it back in. Gus got the bike stripped down to a bare frame today and is going to be painting it sometime next week.

For my new bike, I plan to make a setback seatpost and sheet metal tank for it as well as a red paint job with flat black accents and hopefully some pinstriping if I can find a good striper.

Gus with his bike:

My new project:

 

[dillon_b12]

Gus got the bike all stripped and shot it with a semi-gloss black for the frame, semi-gloss white on the fork, lime green on the rims and more of the semi-gloss white on the spokes.

 

[dillon_b12]

Engine is in.

 

[ratina]

wow that frame turned out great! nice colors too