My 85 year old Dad fished the bike out of the dump for me. I have trained him to take the bikes that I use for parts and leave the rest. Sometimes the temptation is to great for him and be grabs things like this. This was one of his cool grabs.

This bike had lost it's identity a long time ago and I still don't know what it is. It was brush painted with what looks like boat paint and pin striped with pin stripe tape. On close inspection it was a mens cantilever frame that had been recut into a ladies frame and done rather poorly.

Here is a picture showing it's castration scars.

I bent some conduit and holding in place with another tube, I set up this mock up.

I then cut the ladies bar off and prepared the frame for the new bars. After welding the top tube in place, I made up the bottom bar by trial and error, fitting the birds mouth with a hand grinder and eyeballing the rough fit, then rat tail filing the final fit.

The issues that I had was with the forks. Used and abused they were at least a eighth inch loose which had caused major stripping of the threads. I tried to clean them up by coaming them with a tap but after a while of this not working I noticed that the end was somewhat oval and the cone was never going to come off. So I cut it off! I have in the past shorten fork tubes for recumbent bikes and lengthen them for tall bikes. All you need is a stub of thick walled pipe. Whatever size that will fit inside the fork tube. You will need to grind it to fit inside. Also you will need to scavenge another fork for it's threaded end. These will be cut to length and ends beveled for welding.


Things to remember are, the cone could be ruined by the welding so protect it or hope you can slide it over the weld afterwards. I ground my weld a little to slide it over. Also remember to line up the vertical keyway on the threads like the original. Most important is that goose neck has plenty of purchase inside the fork tube without interference with the stub inside the fork tube.

Everything went together nicely.

I pumped up the tires and threw on a seat and bars, both that I hated and took it out in the rain for a ride. I like the seat but I still hate the bars. To wide for my taste.

Next comes tires and paint and what ever catches my fancy.
More to come.
GL

