I originally posted about this bike back in 2008. This started out as a 2001 Schwinn Panther that I bought at Target. This bike served as sort of a beater for a number of years. Then in 2008 I stripped it down to bare steel, repainted it, fabricated some new parts including the tank, headlight mount, suicide bell and some other stuff and I added a whole bunch of new components like the leather saddle and brooks grips, new wheels, sprockets, pedals and the cream Felt Quick Bricks. The build was done in honor of my rescue dog who happens to be named after the famous R.R. engineer Casey Jones.
So today I converted this bike to a three speed by installing the discarded wheels off my Felt MP.
Here it is. The Felt MP in the back got new rims and an 8 speed hub so it was the donor vehicle for the Schwinn's new wheels.
The Felt rim JUST fits in this springer fork. Anything wider would require re-working the fork.
The Shimano 3 speed was wider than the original 1 speed so I spread the rear triangle with the jack from my car.
The black Felt rims and the 5 star hub look right at home in this fork.
Strangely the twist shifter almost matches the primer brown color of the bike.
I didn't feel right using plastic zip ties to secure the shift cable so I cut up an old leather belt and made straps to secure it.
Here are a few more of the bits that I fabricated for this bike.
Heat shield.
Headlight mount.
Suicide bell.
Regards,
So today I converted this bike to a three speed by installing the discarded wheels off my Felt MP.
Here it is. The Felt MP in the back got new rims and an 8 speed hub so it was the donor vehicle for the Schwinn's new wheels.
The Felt rim JUST fits in this springer fork. Anything wider would require re-working the fork.
The Shimano 3 speed was wider than the original 1 speed so I spread the rear triangle with the jack from my car.
The black Felt rims and the 5 star hub look right at home in this fork.
Strangely the twist shifter almost matches the primer brown color of the bike.
I didn't feel right using plastic zip ties to secure the shift cable so I cut up an old leather belt and made straps to secure it.
Here are a few more of the bits that I fabricated for this bike.
Heat shield.
Headlight mount.
Suicide bell.
Regards,