Camel Back Hawthorne

[Illiterite Wino]

not usually into skinny bikes.. but for the price I could not pass it up

this belonged to a guy's wife's dad and had sat in a barn for the last 30 years or so.. he drug it out and tried CL around a year ago with no luck.. tried a garage sale, had an offer but turned it down.. did not sell at an auction either so he told me he was tired of dragging it around and just wanted rid of it so he tried a Facebook sales site..

brought it home pumped up the tires, tightened the hub on the front end a bit and that was it.. rides like a charm. Shifts perfect and stops better than some of my coasters lol

think someone cut the backside of the front fender off at one time

mismatched Schwinn grips lol

 

[Shackleford]

looks like a nice rider survivor

 

[late for dinner]

That paint should clean up real nice and the pinstripes and decals look in nice shape.The old Sturmey 3 speeds are pretty bullet proof.
I just did a quick redo on '65 CCM as a path racer today and my new shifter brought the old hub right back to life.
Nice save on the Hawthorne.

 

[LukeTheJoker]

Very nice find!

Luke.

 

[Wildcat]

Great looking bike, probably early 60's made by Raleigh. I had one like that and the paint really came back nice, along with the chrome. The more I shined the better it looked. The hub shell will have the 2 digit date on it. Too bad about the front fender, but my favorite English 3 speeds always went without both fenders. They look and ride great, especially with the original paint.

 

[Illiterite Wino]

was going to do a build thread.. but I'm only going to try to add a couple things besides the cleanup process ...
first trying to find a longer mudflap to attach to the front fender, for both cosmetic and usefulness reasons. Also believe it or not I had this same frame given to me about 6 years ago with it's original bars.. with a three speed grip shift. I plan on trying to recover the grip shifter, as it is pretty locked up, and put it on this bike.

here's a couple shots of the old frame/bars




and some shots after the first cleaning
ran out of steel wool for the rest of the chrome