24” Girls Rolumbiafast!!!! (Not Rollfast or Columbia!!!!!)

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.
I’ll give it a shot!

one note on this….. doesn’t removing matter from he axle impact the integrity of the axle?

I doubt it. I've filed many axle and never had a failure and I weigh around 250.
 
Before you take a go at the fork, please read this 😉
I've found an arguably easier solution: If you have some older front wheels, the axle, bearings and retainers should easily fit into a new wheel hub! No grinding, no drilling, just swapping out axles. Learned that little trick during last year's Build Off.
BFtD_hawthorne38.jpg
BFtD_hawthorne39.jpg
BFtD_hawthorne37.jpg
BFtD_hawthorne40.jpg
 
So…. What’s the right way to file?

I suppose a “gentle hit” with an angle grinder is too much?

what’s the file look like?

A grinder ain't no file!!! :D

TRM has some pics on his build thread where he did this.
 
And, I hate to push this build any closer to the wire, but these tires do have some pretty glaring imperfections once you get up on them.

-I thought I could make them work, but I just can’t!!!

There’s very fine dry rot beginning on the sidewalls and, some spots, rubber has worn off making the tires look “very used” with the white wall bleeding through unevenly.

As I dig the look on some bikes, this is not the bike for that..... also, I’m not sending Navy girl off with a bike with dry rotted tires!!!!

I ordered a set of knobby 24” x 2.125”’s

I think I’ll take these and stick them on my 24” Schwinn double straight bar.
15FFC4E4-3AA5-46BB-9837-3D4D29C7519F.jpeg
 
Last edited:
Ok, so, I confess!

I was cursing y’all as I walked past the industrial drill bit set on sale for $5.99 with the 3/8” bit to buy an $11.00 file!!!!

However, the job came out OK and was really pretty quick and simple too. Not counting the time it took to buy the file, this job was like a 15-20 minute task.

So, pretty easy, actually.
0D0592EE-40DE-4345-8F96-65B9DDE16473.jpeg


In summary, for me, the fork drilling vs axle filing is a flip of the coin.

I agree, if this was an all original Schwinn or a high value bike, and you’re upgrading to modern wheels, then definitely file the axles.

Likewise, I really liked the axle swap idea proposed by @Bike from the Dead

As I paid $30 for the “Rolumbiafast”, even with this bike fully tuned and resto-modded, at most all I’d get for the bike if I went to sell it is maybe a couple of hundred bucks.

So, file, drill, on a low value bike, I don’t think it matters much. On a bike with value, definitely take the 15-20 minutes to file or do the axle swap.

In the end, thanks for everyone’s input here as I do have a few bikes of value that I’m going to upgrade and using the low value Rolumbiafast as a test run for axle filing was a great experience!!!!!’

Thanks Guys!!!!
 

Latest posts

Back
Top