Earth Cruiser Resurrection

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yoothgeye

I build stuff.
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Roanoke Rapids, NC
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The other day in Bike Talk I showed an Earth Cruiser that garnered some attention.

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This is a bike I’ve been after locally for years. I’ve seen different people riding this bike all over town but never parked where I could ask about it. Finally I saw a guy walking it up the road with a flat tire close to my house. I talked to him and he told me to make him an offer, I gave him $10 or $20. When he walked it to the house I gave him and his friend 2 Walmart mountain bikes as well as the money so they’d still have something to ride. It’s been sitting in my backyard for the last year or 2.

So, I decided to do something with it since I now have some time off.


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I started stripping down the frame over the weekend and got it out to finish today. I had thought about doing a strip and repaint but I decided to build it up as a survivor.

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The bike has had a hard life, at one point it must have had a basket on the front that wore clean through the head badge.

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The bike is covered with scratches that have rusted. I sprayed down the bike in WD40 and scrubbed the entire frame with 00 steel wool. Afterwards I used rubbing compound on the frame and fork to polish it out.

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I would love to have used the original alloy anodized wheels but the bike only had 1 original wheel and even though I have a parts bike with similar wheels, they all look horrible.

I went to install the front wheel and it wouldn’t fit in the fork. I used a scissor jack to stretch it out and cold set it.

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While I left the jack doing it’s work I went and gathered up some new parts around the shop.

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Soon I was able to install the wheels on which I just installed some Sand Jam tires.

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You can kind of see here how well it shined up.

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New coaster strap and axle nuts installed.


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I went to put some wings on the grill for dinner and while they were cooking I grabbed my dice collection to make some valve caps.

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I went with the large black with white dots.

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I just use a small forstner drill bit to drill the hole and push a plastic valve cap into the hole, if it’s loose I add some glue or epoxy but with the right bit they usually fit tightly.

I don’t know what dice are made of but they’re pretty tough to drill.

Next I installed a NOS crank with a NOS Odyssey BB. I chose a gold chain wheel that came off my old Hunter cruiser. Also cleaned/polished and installed chainguard.

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Now a little detailing for the cockpit. I’m using the old beat up stem but updating the stem bolts.

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Also found a little nicer bar, can you see the difference?

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Look closer.

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But, I guess it really didn’t matter after I did this.

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I then cleaned up the seat post, installed a NOS seat clamp that wasn’t destroyed like the one on it (but basically identical), and picked out a saddle. I put a NOS kickstand on it and found some pedals.

Tomorrow I will tighten everything down and show you the finished product.


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Hope you didn’t wait too long, it was a 1 day build. Haha


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I meant you. "This is a bike I’ve been after locally for years".
 

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