Re: FAIL! (rear brake issue)
Schwinn coaster frames all used a rear arch that had only a hole perpendicular to the tire tread for mounting a fender. The multispeed bikes had a rear arch with a flat bracket welded in such a way to hold a caliper brake. in the 20" bikes, that was the difference between a coaster Stingray and a 5-speed Krate or Stingray or 3-speed Deluxe.
And yeah, there's no way to modify the frame short of cutting out one type of arch and welding in the other one. Something nobody wants to do, even on a bike getting repainted.
There is an adapter made to change the brake mount. Hyper-Formance has offered these for sale, and you can at least see pictures of them, in the Parts section of their web site :
http://www.hyper-formance.com
I don't know if I'd trust the rear fender bracket for brake duty. They don't seem all that strong, and it is your stopping ability we're talking about here. If you find something secure enough, you can test it and decide if it's rugged enough for everyday use.
For the front, there's no reason you can't have an effective brake on there. At least get that one working. I'm not sure which model you're talking about, since "cruiser" is used for a lot of styles of bike, but it sounds like you mean an actual Schwinn Cruiser badged model.
The bike probably came with a coaster-brake single speed rear hub, and you could go back to that, or find a drum-brake rear wheel, like one from a tandem, or a 3-spd coaster, made by either Sturmey Archer or Shimano (now probably badged as a Nexus.)
Any of those options will give you a rear brake without having to change the frame or rig up some way to mount a caliper.
I just built a ladies '47 Schwinn into a 5-speed for my wife using a drum/5-spd rear wheel.
Good luck!
--Rob
slim724 said:
So I'm rebuilding a 79 schwinn cruiser that I bought at garage sale, after I got it home I noticed it had a nexus 3spd hub and freewheel, I thought cool, even better! it has a barely working front cantilever semi attached so I promply bought a new rear cantilever brake assembly, went to the garage to bolt it on and to my surprise the rear bar to attach it to has the bolt through hole going the wrong way, I'm assuming for attaching a fender. My question would be, is there any type of adapter that will allow me to use the existing rear bar, or maybe attach it to the frame sides somehow? I'm looking for a bolt on solution since I don't have a welder. Or are there any other rear brake options out there besides the bottom of my shoe? I guess I really should've taken a closer look at the bike