'77-'78 Scrambler tribute

Rat Rod Bikes Bicycle Forum

Help Support Rat Rod Bikes Bicycle Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
Joined
Sep 13, 2006
Messages
1,438
Reaction score
4,513
Location
southern PA
Rating - 100%
2   0   0
Back when Black Friday Krates were a thing, I was just getting back into bikes as an adult. I bought the green one for something like $79, and then the blue and black ones on clearance for less than $40. I always envisioned customizing them to represent different eras of Stingrays... the green one as an early Deluxe, the blue one as a late '60s fenderless, and the black one as an early '70s BMX conversion. The black one looked like this for a while:
3rays05.jpg

3rays05x.JPG


The wheels and fork were robbed off a (get this) girls' Schwinn Dee-Lite that I got for a few bucks at a thrift store. It was one of those nasty little Toys R Us bikes with one big oval tube from the head tube to the BB. I went as far as spray bombing the forks black, but it has been kicking around in pretty much that state for like 10 years.

Then just recently I saw these cool-looking old school raised white letter knobbies on Fleabay, and I decided the bike needed an update. I robbed the bars and stem off a junker '78 Schwinn Tornado BMX-style bike and made up some graphics on my wife's Cricut, and this is where we are at now.

20190218_094534.jpg
20190218_094621.jpg
20190218_092512.jpg


I am thinking about putting a 24" Schwinn blade fork on it like the old Scramblers had, but the one I have needs to be threaded further down to work with this frame. I also noticed a thread on a BMX board where someone found a vintage Stingray-frame Scrambler with some very early Red Line forks on it, and they are shaped kinda like these, so I might just leave these on it and even print up some obviously bogus Red Line looking stickers for the fork. I figure that'd go with the theme of using a bad copy of a Sting-Ray to make a bad Scrambler tribute bike. :bigsmile::21::rofl: (Didn't I see that somewhere on RRB? Someone printed some fork stickers that looked like a brand name but said something else funny...)
 
Update: Found this seat at Trexlertown for five bucks.
20191027_192030.jpg
20191027_192046.jpg


Got to playing with the wife's die cutter machine and made up a couple of stencils. I probably should have taken better pics before positioning them on the seat.
20191027_195238.jpg
20191027_195937.jpg


I picked up a can of Krylon Fusion Satin White at Wally World and went to town. From what I've read online, since this stuff is made to bond to plastic, and vinyl is plastic, it works pretty well as vinyl paint.

End result:
20191027_201434.jpg
20191027_201442.jpg
20191027_210113.jpg
20191027_210040.jpg


Proper white garage door shots to come soon.

It's not gonna fool anyone who knows what they're looking at if they give it more than a quick glance, but it makes for a nice rider.

The last step now is to take that blue 24" girls' fork leaning against the guard in the bottom pic and thread it down far enough to work on this bike.
 
Awesome! Great job on the lettering.

I have a 26" canti frame I've been wanting to Scramblize.
No Ashtabula stem(in black) or forks(except for lightweight, which wouldn't fit wide 26" tires.). And I'd probably use a different bend black bars. And a homemade seat and sissy bar. So mine would be way farther from correct.
 
Awesome! Great job on the lettering.

I have a 26" canti frame I've been wanting to Scramblize.
No Ashtabula stem(in black) or forks(except for lightweight, which wouldn't fit wide 26" tires.). And I'd probably use a different bend black bars. And a homemade seat and sissy bar. So mine would be way farther from correct.
That'd look cool with low, wide MX motorcycle bars... :thumbsup:
 
Picked up an Ashtabula fork at the Butler swap meet. Besides looking "correct," I think it looks much better than the tubular one, which made the front end look too heavy.
20200120_110651.jpg
 
So I hacked and fudged and spray-bombed a fender off an old Ross girls' bike, and raided a friend's parts stash for some reflectors, and did some more hacking to the rear reflector bracket, and this is what I ended up with. I'm calling it done; now it's just waiting for spring riding weather.
20200127_072925.jpg
20200127_073000.jpg
20200127_093914.jpg
 

Latest posts

Back
Top