I picked up from Wendell (a machinist down the street who decided to buy lots of bikes from auction and sell them) a really ragged and limping along Huffy for $10, along with a triple tree fork he had for another $10 (which i added to a firmstrong chief cruiser) so... $20 and away I went. I didn't even bother with taking pics of the Huffy when I got home thinking I'd just use it for parts in other projects.
As I got to stripping it, I noticed it had a kickstand like a Schwinn would have and that was kinda cool, I checked the serial down below the bb to make sure and yup.. huffy. I don't really know the model of it, it had been painted over a grimey black and rust was coming thru that paint. I could see there were stickers still under the paint, but when I tried to remove the paint with acetone, the lettering proved to be unreadable. I did notice a slight hint of a different serial number at the head tube, my 78 schwinn mag scrambler has it's serial there, so then I decided to strip the paint altogether and see what I might find. that is where I first took some pics because I figured at that point.... it's on.
Besides some odd holes in the frame that were used to hold the cables down with some awful clip, the frame actually had some nice lines. notably, the area behind the seatpost had a tubing extending down where the cantilever brakes would attach the cable. I had some metallic blue available so I went ahead and used it on the frame the cantilever brake and the rims too. I added a couple layers of clear on that frame, and then put some new tires and grips. I only used the front brake to keep it looking clean and said goodbye to the gear shifter and gearing, reducing the rear hub to have just 2 small cogs. oh yeah, and the front sprocket, I removed the smallest chainring and left 2 there as well
what is kinda neat about the 4 sprockets remaining is this. I put a quick release axle in on the rear wheel and since it is a fork end drop out and can slide a bit. You can adjust the gear ratios to match your mood. It's not a shifting on the fly thing, but with very little effort you can go from a nice comfortable speed as you ride along, to a wicked speed ratio where you are getting 3.15 spins per crank and it feels like your legs are really gonna burn if you keep it up too long... fun stuff!
So I know a couple other huffy's I've worked on also had a similar schwinn style kickstand but I've never been sure as to why that was. This one got a little re-fresher out of it and hopefully has a long life ahead of it now with all the rust removed and whatnot.
I put the details on how I converted down to the single speed rear hub on a post I did on a Rollfast/Mossberg bike on this builds section if u are curious to see that.
The other aquisition that day was the forks on this bike... $10 bucks isn't bad for those I think.
As I got to stripping it, I noticed it had a kickstand like a Schwinn would have and that was kinda cool, I checked the serial down below the bb to make sure and yup.. huffy. I don't really know the model of it, it had been painted over a grimey black and rust was coming thru that paint. I could see there were stickers still under the paint, but when I tried to remove the paint with acetone, the lettering proved to be unreadable. I did notice a slight hint of a different serial number at the head tube, my 78 schwinn mag scrambler has it's serial there, so then I decided to strip the paint altogether and see what I might find. that is where I first took some pics because I figured at that point.... it's on.
Besides some odd holes in the frame that were used to hold the cables down with some awful clip, the frame actually had some nice lines. notably, the area behind the seatpost had a tubing extending down where the cantilever brakes would attach the cable. I had some metallic blue available so I went ahead and used it on the frame the cantilever brake and the rims too. I added a couple layers of clear on that frame, and then put some new tires and grips. I only used the front brake to keep it looking clean and said goodbye to the gear shifter and gearing, reducing the rear hub to have just 2 small cogs. oh yeah, and the front sprocket, I removed the smallest chainring and left 2 there as well
what is kinda neat about the 4 sprockets remaining is this. I put a quick release axle in on the rear wheel and since it is a fork end drop out and can slide a bit. You can adjust the gear ratios to match your mood. It's not a shifting on the fly thing, but with very little effort you can go from a nice comfortable speed as you ride along, to a wicked speed ratio where you are getting 3.15 spins per crank and it feels like your legs are really gonna burn if you keep it up too long... fun stuff!
So I know a couple other huffy's I've worked on also had a similar schwinn style kickstand but I've never been sure as to why that was. This one got a little re-fresher out of it and hopefully has a long life ahead of it now with all the rust removed and whatnot.
I put the details on how I converted down to the single speed rear hub on a post I did on a Rollfast/Mossberg bike on this builds section if u are curious to see that.
The other aquisition that day was the forks on this bike... $10 bucks isn't bad for those I think.
