(MBBO Class 1) AMF Avenger 5, dead stock to speed demon.

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greenephantom

greenephantom

Joined
May 7, 2009
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I'll get pics up once I get my Photobucket figured out again. If you google 'AMF avenger 5' you'll find the very same bike pictured a few years back on the CABE.

Picked up an all-original '69 AMF Avenger 5 at this year's Iron Ranch swap meet. All there but a bit rough around the edges, still a very presentable bike. A steal at $150. Pre Aero-bee style guard, so it uses the small angular chrome guard. Long wheelbase, 6.5 inch cranks, so lots of potential. But it's also saddled with the heavy and slow wheels and tires, the wimpy brakes, and various cost-cutting parts that really kill the thrill.

The vision for this bike will be to make it stupid fast and be able to stop on a dime and make change. To accomplish this it will rock drum brakes front and rear, mated to light alloy rims and fast tires. Will also swap out the various "budget" parts (stem, brake levers, etc) for better vintage equivalents. Essentially I'm going for a banana seat bike that will live up to its racy looks but will still retain the original lines and geometry. A resto-mod, if you will.

Already pulled the ridiculously stuck seat post with the use of 1/2" threaded rod, lots of creativity, and a big wrench. Bike is down to the frame and waiting to be built.

Cheers, Geoff
 
Sounds really cool! Look forward to this one. It's this bike right? Awesome looking bike. Looks like figuring out how to pull the seat back a bit might be a good idea if yours is like this one.

:edit: Just read your post again. This is your bike! Man that chainguard is cool!

P1000179-1.jpg
 
Sweet idea! Not unlike what Chad T did. I would recommend staying away from drum brakes if you're going for light, fast, and stops on a dime. I've used a rear drum brake for two builds, and they are heavy and don't stop on a dime. Maybe get some disc brakes? I would watch your CL and find a cheap beater that has front a rear disc brakes and convert.
For running gear, if you want to keep with vintage, I would suggest old Shimano 105, or something like that.
 
Those Tektro dual pivot, long reach calipers I used work real good with an alloy rim as well and keep a somewhat traditional look. I was contemplating discs until I found those. Not sure if they would clear fenders though.

Either way this bike should be cool!
 
I've had decent luck with the modern alloy Sturmey drums. I run them on the full size cruisers and they stop nicely. Plus I have some backstock of 1990s era mountain bike oversized brake cables which fill up the cable housing a bit better and lend a firmer feel to the lever, especially on long lengths of housing.

The rims that I'm fixated on using are the Alienation Deviants (in full polish) which don't allow for rim brakes. (Plus I wouldn't want to dull up the sidewalls with brakes.) I built up wheels for my Sears Tote Cycle using these rims in conjunction with Tioga PowerBand tires and it motors out like a madman.

Ain't gonna be a cheap build, but sometimes when I get an idea in my head the only way I can get it back out is by building the bike.

Cheers, Geoff
 
Parts are here to build the wheels. Alienation Deviant hoops (super light and there's a warning sticker that says "for front use only", um, whatever), Sturmey drums, and Tioga (1.85 Powerband & 2.10 Powerblock) tires. For spokes I'm going to be cutting down some NOS Union spokes, the old dull finish ones, because I'm a grumpy old man like that.

Will almost certainly have to spread the frame and fork to accommodate the modern hubs, which is just another day at the office for me. Spread the drops, center, re-align the tips, done.

Let's see if I've managed to remember how to do the photobucket thing.

Cheers, Geoff
 
CRASH said:
I look forward to seeing how those tires look. I toyed with the idea of using one for a rear, but I want to keep it square like original, so I haven't pulled the trigger.
Click to expand...

I thought about those tires as well. They are about the only tire out there that you can get staggered for 1 3/8 rims. I thought the slicks were racier though.

Now quit lurkin' and get workin' on that Judge 5!....;-)
 
Looks like that's going to be a cool build Geoff! I like the NOS spokes on it, nice touch.
 
Wheels built, I have pics and will endeavor to post them tomorrow. I decided to keep the stickers on the rims, at least for now. They sit opposite of the logos on the tires, so they sort of chase each other as the wheels spin.

Built the wheels 2-cross since the flanges are so tall.

And yes, they turned out sweeeeet!

Fork and frame spread and aligned, fork installed, wheels installed, kickstand installed, so now it's a roller and it doesn't fall over. Headset feels cheesy but there's not much I can do about it.

NOS 5-arm star style chainring on the way from eBay. (Original kind of bunged up and wasn't wild about the design.) Once it arrives will get the bottom bracket / crank situation sorted. New BB hardware (original stuff not so good) and cranks (got boxes of them) ready and waiting. And then things will start to get exciting.

Cheers, Geoff
 
Fork tips aligned. These were all kinds of wonked, but they came back nicely.


Also aligned the rear drops and brought the drive side stays / drop out by about 5mm in order to fit the drum brake rear. No pics of this process, alas.

Here it is as a roller.


Here it is with bars and brake levers installed. Brake levers are modern generic aftermarket, alloy, have a nice black stripe on them. Significantly less than thrilled about the headset. Going to go back into it and run loose balls top and bottom and see if that makes it better. Also less than thrilled about the dimensional tolerances inside the steer tube. Too loose for a standard .833 stem, yet a .890 will not fit. Will eventually run some sort of shim. Stem is a standard Ashtabula style, likely off a Schwinn. Bars are '69 Schwinn. The stock bars didn't have long enough flats to run the grips and keep the brake levers on the flat part of the bar. Mwah-mwah.
The original pie plate cleaned up nicely. As did the Shimano Lark rear derailleur. The original freewheel had the split-top teeth, deal-breaker for me. Luckily had a NOS Suntour 5 speed freewheel knocking around, first two gears standard, then 3 though 5 are a bit higher than standard, which should work out nicely as I'll be pushing less mass with these ridiculously light hoops and tires.


Here's the seat. Pan is beat up and bent. Most likely from the PO's ineffectual efforts to remove the wicked stuck seatpost. Going to pop the pans apart and see what I can do to make it look less haggard.
 

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