Hornswoggler *DeLuxe*

Advertise with us
Bike Wall
BOXKARS
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.
Couch tater

Couch tater

Pro Member
Joined
May 18, 2020
Messages
849
Reaction score
3,069
I bought this wreck of a Higgins last summer. It had spent a long time in a farm shed laying flat on a gravel floor. Shortly after bringing it home I gave it an O.A .bath that went spectacularly sideways. Failing to follow any instructions at all, the red paint turned pink and it all had a magnificent coating of the dreaded O.A. yellow crust. I sanded it down, hosed it with primer, and hid it away. It's time to see if it can be made charming again.

First step in this build is to change my avatar. I'm not a competitive person but I'm almost smart enough to know that a happy go lucky tater won't strike fear into the minds of the competition like a pumped up macho tater.

From my archives, the Higgins wreckage on the day of purchase presented for your viewing pleasure:

20200710_110044.jpg
 
Can't go wrong with a mean tater Higgins with a cool build name. Mmmm hmmmm

download.jpeg
 
You've got a great starting point there! Easily one of the most attractive postwar bikes out there. You wouldn't happen to have a picture of the carnage from the o.a. bath gone wrong, would you? I think seeing what you're really starting with will make the end result that much more spectacular. Best of luck to you in bringing your Higgins back to life!
 
Bike from the Dead said:
You've got a great starting point there! Easily one of the most attractive postwar bikes out there. You wouldn't happen to have a picture of the carnage from the o.a. bath gone wrong, would you? I think seeing what you're really starting with will make the end result that much more spectacular. Best of luck to you in bringing your Higgins back to life!
Click to expand...
No, I didn't take a photo of the mess I made. I made the solution way too strong, left it in there too long , and didn't rinse it down immediately and thoroughly when I removed it. Directions are overrated. I bought it really cheap and originally was going to just use it for parts and to practice painting, my weakest building skill. The rust on the side that laid in the gravel was pretty bad, one of the fender braces ends fell off from just being handled it was so thin.
 
It will be fun watching this come to life once again. Cool bike to begin a build!

RaT oN~!
 
I've never so much as slung a leg over this bike, let alone ride it. With only one wheel and me not being a unicyclist it just wasn't going to happen.So this morning I pieced it together with the goal of riding it and posting a glossy photo in the Show Me Your Bikes on Bridges thread. In the language of the bicyclist enthusiast, the frame is laterally vertical and compliantly stiff or something like that. The seat post self-slammed during the ride and the hind wheel went out of alignment so an average ride overall. Now I find myself in the enviable situation of being able to post it in the finished bike thread and slumbering the summer away. Naw, there is more building to do on this old sled.

Frame at 9:00 a.m. this morning

20210501_094857 (1).jpg


Bike on bridge, 11:30 a.m.

20210501_114645 (1).jpg
 
Alright, time to move this in the direction of the build. I will be incorporating early rod & kustom ideas with some off the wall parts. Yeah, that's about it.

The fork I will be using is a 1953 Schwinn springer. It came from a thoroughly trashed bike I bought last summer. The steerer had been broken at the pivot and poorly repaired, I cut that repair out and repaired it in a much more solid manor. The cool thing about the earliest Schwinn springers is that the steerer can be reversed to give the bike a little bit of stretch and rake.

20210501_182240.jpg
 
I wasn't sure what to use for fenders so I headed down to the skate park where the chicks have staked their claim. They always know what is hot and what is not but you better not approach them because they'll gut your self esteem like a fresh caught halibut.

women-jai-alai.jpg


Good call ladies, fat Monark fenders it shall be. I have four of them from the Super Cruiser I'm rounding up parts for, the rattiest two will go to the Hornswoggler *DeLuxe*.

A heaping helping of fat Monark fenders:

20210501_185832.jpg


Mocked up and looking good. The fender brace & chainguard line must be straight or it is a fail. I have a whole bunch of sheet metal work ahead of me to get this where it's going.

20210501_192339.jpg
 
With a post pandemic world fast approaching, I want to spend more time riding and less time wrenching. I'm juggling what will be my final three builds for a while and therefore opened the flood gates of my parts stash. This morning I picked out the bars and stem I'll be using for this build. Originally procured for my 45 Huffman, it instantly rejected them, that bike wants to be subdued. The stainless steel bars are from a 1989 SeaDoo XP personal watercraft and the stem is an early 80s bmx. They look pretty slick on this bike. I have some more sheetmetal to mock up and a few hours with a Sharpie to get the repairs and fit figured out.

20210502_081841.jpg
 
Some more mocking up. I got the tank from a guy that I bought a bike from. He kept heading back into his garage and bringing out freebies for me. Cool dude. Anyway, I took my cutoff wheel and air file to it so it would fit tightly around the frame. Final mounting is still to be determined. Slapped the rack on. Found a brace for the front fender. Seat post is from my 37 Schwinn. Headlight is a Yankee tribar turn signal light from the 50s or 60s that I reversed. Taillight is from some small scooter back in the day. Pretty close to what I think will be the final product. It is held together with zipties, magnets, and gravity so I might need to make things a little more permanent.

20210502_135434.jpg
20210502_135447.jpg
20210502_135454.jpg
 
Couch tater said:
Some more mocking up. I got the tank from a guy that I bought a bike from. He kept heading back into his garage and bringing out freebies for me. Cool dude. Anyway, I took my cutoff wheel and air file to it so it would fit tightly around the frame. Final mounting is still to be determined. Slapped the rack on. Found a brace for the front fender. Seat post is from my 37 Schwinn. Headlight is a Yankee tribar turn signal light from the 50s or 60s that I reversed. Taillight is from some small scooter back in the day. Pretty close to what I think will be the final product. It is held together with zipties, magnets, and gravity so I might need to make things a little more permanent.

View attachment 156023View attachment 156024View attachment 156025
Click to expand...

YES!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
You've been stashing away some really cool parts. I love where this is headed.
 
kingfish254 said:
You've been stashing away some really cool parts. I love where this is headed.
Click to expand...
I completed six builds last year and this is my fourth so far of this year so parts have a way of piling up. A month ago, three sets of the Monark deep fenders came up for sale locally from three different people. The set I bought were the cheapest and best shape of the bunch. My Super Cruiser has schoolyard bike rack damage both front and rear so they ended up in the parts stash. The lights are left over from a rat motorcycle I helped a friend build many years ago. The inside perimeter of my garage looks like a bicycle junk yard exploded.
 
I found a photo on my phone of the fork steerer before I repaired it last summer. Face plant waiting to happen. When I V'd it out to weld, there was zero penetration from the old brazing. I still might go back after it and add a gusset on each leg for more strength. I have to think running it reversed will put more stress on this area. The rest of the bike it came off of was pure carnage, it is long gone now.

20201013_180042.jpg
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Latest posts

Back
Top