Hola mis amigos. You may feel like that is a strange way to begin this post considering my project is a Schwinn American but when the finished product is revealed it will all make sense. Originally I hadn't planned on entering this years contest but I traded one of the bikes I entered in last years MBBO ('66 Huffy Cheater Slick) to a friend of mine for something that's a little more my size. As stated in the title, the bike is a '64 Schwinn American. It's a 26" with a two-speed red-band kickback. I've decided that I'm not going to use that rear hub. I've already got a nice Bendix RB2 that I refurbished last year for a project that never got off the ground. I'll end up selling the two-speed off to offset the cost of this build. The bike is currently in pieces. I had the bearings and related pieces soaking in the secret sauce and yesterday I pulled them out and prepared them for reassembly. I also completely disassembled the front wheel since it was so nasty (never done that before). It made it a heck of a lot easier to clean and surprisingly, I got it back together correctly. For the rear wheel I'm going to use a Schwinn replacement S-2 hoop instead of the stock S-7. I've got all the parts except for the seat which will be a Supersecret™ design until I post the reveal photos on deadline day. I'm not planning on breaking any new ground here or 'winning' anything, I'm entering mainly to keep myself motivated to actually work on this thing. Anyway, here's the before photo...............