Vintage Schwinn Bicycle Reference Books & More

  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. 

Here's the frame as it sits.  Original paint looks pretty decent in this tiny picutre, but up close it's a mess.----------------------------------------------------Got the goods from Hyper-Formance.  Quality stuff at a great price, and it got here super quick and well packed.  I could have easily paid four times as much on eBay for the same decals and small parts from other sellers.     Here's a snap from the '68 catalog of the Orange Krate.  This is what this pile of parts will look like once it's a bike again.-
-------------------------------------------------------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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     Okay.  I've waited about four months.  Not really my choice, lots of other projects (plus a baby) have been taking up time.  Pulled together some decent parts, and scrounged my ever shrinking back-stock for needed pieces.  Color-lines are just Sharpie paint pen, not the real thing.  Front wheel is just a mock up while I rebuild the Atom.  Once I doctor up the rear fender strut and stiffen up the sissy pogos, then it should practically finish itself.

           Just started in on the Atom hub.  Rebuilding this wheel is going to be an undertaking.  Rim should be replaced, so there's a part I need to hunt down.  Several spokes are broken, so will have to have a fresh run cut at Missing Link. That's the easy stuff.

      The hub itself required a new axle (Hyper-formance) as well as fresh cones and bearings and nuts.  One of the bearing cups in the hub was rusted and pitted.  Took a punch and knocked it out.  Found a replacement cup in a hub off of an Exerciser.  Took the donor hub outside with the angle grinder and did a bit of surgery.  Once the donor cup was free of the hub, I popped it into the Atom.  Well, actually I took an appropriately sized socket to distribute the force and pounded the new cup into the Atom with a three pound hammer.  Then using a diagram from one of the old dealer catalogs for reference I assembled the axle with the correct hardware.  Now the Atom spins nice and smooth.

    After I polish up the shell some more (yeah, I know they weren't originally polished, but this one was ugly, so I'm opting for too-shiny over way too dull.) then I'll be ready to build it up into a wheel.  Hopefully I'll have found a decent 16" S-7 hoop by then.

           Got the Orange Krate about 95% completed.  A few details left to sort out, the most pressing one being replacing the ridiculous split-top tooth ghost-pedal inducing freewheel.  Rides sweet, stops solid.  If only I my wheelie skills were up to par, then I could do this bike justice.

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1959 Schwinn Tornado, coaster brake Middleweight

    Picked this bike up many months ago (in like 2009).  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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1961 Schwinn Corvette 5-speed

   Just picked up (like in 2009) 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 2010 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.
 

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   Got the frame and fork and donor chainguard stripped down to bare metal.  Frame and fork primed with self-etching primer and then red oxide.  Now frame fork and guard are finished in automotive grade paint.  Went with black because it's easier to paint solids than metallics, and then I can use a stock style seat. Turned out pretty decent, not 100%, but decent.

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     Painted the frame fork and guard.  Popped a headset into the frame and got the fork prepped with crown trim and crown race and assembled with bearings.  Headset action felt like garbage.  Turns out that the original fork is toast, the crown was bent along with the legs.  I had previously aligned the legs, but the crown area was still wonked.  Scrambled and found another fork, got it down to bare metal, hit it with two primer layers and slapped some black on it.

     So now the only parts I've salvaged from the original bike are the frame, rear hub, and some shifter parts.  The rest was toast.  So this is really turning out to be a "replace-storation".

    Here's the guard with decals.  Whoo!  Decals!

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   After a bit of a hiatus, finally started making some progress on this bike. 

   Popped one strut off of each fender, rolled out some gnarly dents, sanded out some scrapes with progressively finer sandpaper, and then hand polished with Mother's metal polish.

   Rebuilt the rear hub and laced it into an S-7.  Tossed on a pair of slightly weathered repop Tiawan Westwinds, which were much more brittle than an original 60s era Westwind that I popped off the front hoop.  The major donor bike for this Corvette was a Fair Lady middleweight that I downgraded a bit (pulled the nice parts and replaced with average stuff) and then overhauled and sold.  The fenders, hoops, and some other shiny bits got pulled.

   Tossed on some black letter white chubbies, some red dot eye pokers (with NOS straps), a correct reverse profile chainring, (cranks are 70s era, shhh, don't tell), some '62 bow pedals, some '60 bars, and a correct Huret rear derailleur.  Freewheel is also period correct, but it's on probation, we'll see if it holds the chain or allows for ghost-pedal.

    The decals just about gave me fits, but got them managed.  The top tube decals fought me the entire way, broke the drive side one in four pieces but managed to get it together and looking decent.  Though I do have the feeling that the top tube decals should have been about an inch forward.  Oh well.  The seat tube decal took a couple tries to get it straight, and as soon as you let it go it wants to wrap around and stick tight, so had a few moments of sinking-feeling before getting it dialed in.

    Have yet to cable it up or adjust the brake calipers or the derailleur.  Thinking about dropping some color coils on it to really make it pop.

    Headlight is a late 60s / early 70s era with the built-in electric horn.  Not correct, but it looks sweet, and I've always  been a fan of the lower-mount look.

     So yeah, it's getting there.

        General profile shot. Starting to look like a 'Vette.

         Light installed.  LED conversion.

             Gah!  The pedal looks filthy with a flash on it.

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    Finally got a solid chunk of time to finish up the Corvette.  Ran cables, finished up the cable wrap, adjusted brakes and installed some "vintage" black Kool Stop Continentals.  Plus got to track down some fiddly bits for the rear derailleur, man I'm glad I had some other derailleurs of the vintage to pull parts from.

            So here it is all knocked together.  A friend was over at the house right after I got this bike done, and we were both sort of marveling that this model wasn't a huge seller for Schwinn.  So it goes.