Here are some photos of my Official Unofficial Orange County Chopper that has begun to become thoroughly Ratted. This bike has some cool history, it's a 2002 Pacific that OCC officially disowns. According to the OCC sales and marketing division, who I have been communicating with for the past two months, OCC did not design this bike. OCC did design the Stingray, and marketed that through the Schwinn name. However, Pacific owns Schwinn, and after they obtained licensing, they released these as OCC, which they are not too happy about.
Last June I was cleaning out my friend's yard and I found this in the woods behind his house. It was more than half buried (with only the super-rusted front wheel and fork sticking out of the sand) and it had a 3" sapling growing through the middle of the frame and was covered in a lot of poison ivy. Since we were yardscaping, I had a weed eater and a chainsaw handy, so I cut off the tree and vines and dug it up (quite literally).
Me and my paw-dukes removed all the rust from the chrome parts by hand with copper wool and Cameo polishing powder. It took us nearly 18 hours to un-rust it! The paint, while scratched, is a really sweet looking blue that I can't bring myself to rattle-can. I cleaned the paint with industrial grade 100% isopropyl alcohol and used various Meguiars automotive waxes to restore a pretty nice finish.
The bike came with a pretty brutal seat that was affixed to the post with bolts, so I picked up one from Wal-Mart and cut the original post with a hacksaw and stuffed a gas-pipe MTB chrome post in it and clamped it all up. Which worked out rather well.
The next cool mod was the headlight. I wanted a cool retro-style light, but did not want to spend 30 bucks on something so simple. So I bought a 9V style camping lantern at Big Lots for $2.50, a cooking funnel from Dollar Dreams, and a $.99 eight LED flashlight from Harbor Freight. I fabbed a mounting bracket from corner and repair braces from Wal-Mart. I assembled the bracket with small machine screws and used automotive zippy ties to mount it cleanly to the bars/stem.
The original crank set was a 40 tooth chainwheel with pitiful 140mm crank arms. This was pretty useless for a bike that weighs some 45lbs, so I put a 175mm 44tooth chainwheel crankset from a Next BMX I found in the trash.
These may seem like ridiculous mods, but hecks, I'm 34, 6' tall and 200lbs, and I wanted to ride the darn thing. Though I am a HUGE proponent of "Bike as Art" I am and even bigger proponent of " Bikes are for riding".
It turned out pretty sweet! I've ridden it at the bike path a few times and it's a head turner. Not bad for a project that cost a grand total of 37 dollars!
I may do more to it, I might not, to paraphrase Dr Tankenstien; are they ever really done?
Enjoy!
Here's what it looked like after the rust-removal
Here's what it looks like as of last night
Here's some detail of the custom light
and the store-bought (albeit on clearance for 4 dolla!) taillight
Custom cranks (w patina)
Safety First!
Last June I was cleaning out my friend's yard and I found this in the woods behind his house. It was more than half buried (with only the super-rusted front wheel and fork sticking out of the sand) and it had a 3" sapling growing through the middle of the frame and was covered in a lot of poison ivy. Since we were yardscaping, I had a weed eater and a chainsaw handy, so I cut off the tree and vines and dug it up (quite literally).
Me and my paw-dukes removed all the rust from the chrome parts by hand with copper wool and Cameo polishing powder. It took us nearly 18 hours to un-rust it! The paint, while scratched, is a really sweet looking blue that I can't bring myself to rattle-can. I cleaned the paint with industrial grade 100% isopropyl alcohol and used various Meguiars automotive waxes to restore a pretty nice finish.
The bike came with a pretty brutal seat that was affixed to the post with bolts, so I picked up one from Wal-Mart and cut the original post with a hacksaw and stuffed a gas-pipe MTB chrome post in it and clamped it all up. Which worked out rather well.
The next cool mod was the headlight. I wanted a cool retro-style light, but did not want to spend 30 bucks on something so simple. So I bought a 9V style camping lantern at Big Lots for $2.50, a cooking funnel from Dollar Dreams, and a $.99 eight LED flashlight from Harbor Freight. I fabbed a mounting bracket from corner and repair braces from Wal-Mart. I assembled the bracket with small machine screws and used automotive zippy ties to mount it cleanly to the bars/stem.
The original crank set was a 40 tooth chainwheel with pitiful 140mm crank arms. This was pretty useless for a bike that weighs some 45lbs, so I put a 175mm 44tooth chainwheel crankset from a Next BMX I found in the trash.
These may seem like ridiculous mods, but hecks, I'm 34, 6' tall and 200lbs, and I wanted to ride the darn thing. Though I am a HUGE proponent of "Bike as Art" I am and even bigger proponent of " Bikes are for riding".
It turned out pretty sweet! I've ridden it at the bike path a few times and it's a head turner. Not bad for a project that cost a grand total of 37 dollars!
I may do more to it, I might not, to paraphrase Dr Tankenstien; are they ever really done?
Enjoy!
Here's what it looked like after the rust-removal
Here's what it looks like as of last night
Here's some detail of the custom light
and the store-bought (albeit on clearance for 4 dolla!) taillight
Custom cranks (w patina)
Safety First!
