BO15 StRATo Flyer

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I have had an old all chrome Western Auto Strato Flyer (classier cousin to the Spaceliner;)) out in storage for years, and I’ve decided to do a little build to spiffy it up. Most of the chrome on the frame is pretty nice except the seat tube and neck. There is an old weld repair where it looks like bottom bar broke off at some point, so I’m hoping I can find a tank light to help hide that. It has the original Western Flyer branded tires, but the chrome on the rims are pretty bad. I may paint them or swap out some new chrome ones. The fenders are missing and it has an old pair of apes on it, so I’ll probably leave them, but might put fenders back on it. I’m going to throw some spare parts at it and see what looks good.

Here how she looks at moment:
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PARTS LIST:


The first part I ordered for it is a sparkley silver seat. IDK if this is a factory seat cover or recovered, but I love the look and I think it will look good on the chrome bike.
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I found a pretty cool decal version of a Western Flyer headbadge. This bike had a tank at one time, so there was no headbadge present and I figured it worked well with the red and chrome.
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Figured I might as well match the seat.
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Rain gutter style flat chrome fenders with red accents. Ive has these laying around for years (can’t even remember what I pulled them off of) and decided to clean them and stripe them.
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Factory guard with custom paint and striping. There is a dent in the guard that stuck out like a sore thumb, so the satin black helps camouflage that.
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I went with these tires. They look really nice, especially for the price.
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Future post for finished bike.
 
Stratoflyers are cool liner cousins.
I hate to say it, but it looks like that bike may have suffered a strong front hit that shifted the whole headtube back about 5+ degrees on the bottom. That negative rake will affect your ride geometry a little. Just make sure that everything was welded back to the headtube good enough.
 
Stratoflyers are cool liner cousins.
I hate to say it, but it looks like that bike may have suffered a strong front hit that shifted the whole headtube back about 5+ degrees on the bottom. That negative rake will affect your ride geometry a little. Just make sure that everything was welded back to the headtube good enough.

Thanks for the heads up. It seems to ride OK, and the weld looks to be solid, though it is ugly. I believe it was done with a stick welder.

What affect would it likely have if it was too much? Twitchy at higher speed or something else? I haven’t rode it much, but I did ride a little before the old tube gave up back when I originally got it.
 
That silver seat is perfect for this bike.

In a crash, usually the fork takes the whole bend, and/or the wheel gets warped. Your fork looks pretty straight, but to be sure I would pull it and have a close look at it. I would focus on the crown, and look for cracks. It may have been straightened after bending, or the frame took it all the hit. Your front wheel looks okay too and looks original.
I agree with kingfish, the frame head tube angle is changed. I found a pic of a Stratoliner like yours, but not chrome. It is from a post made by kingfish. Coincidence? You can see how the angle of the headtube almost matches the angle or slant of the seat tube.
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Rat Pilot, The battle damage gives your bike a cool vibe kinda like a mid-century delivery bike. :thumbsup:

Looking at a straight on shot of it, I don’t think it’s as bad as it looks in the other angle. I think some of it is coming from the forks being tweaked as well. I’m going to put a different tire on the rear and try to get it up to a little speed today before I proceed with.

It seemed to ride fine when I rode it before, I didn’t ride it much or very fast. Unless it does something goofy, I’m going to roll with it.

A Rat is supposed to be a dangerous, right! ;) :)
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So I took it out for a ride this morning and got it as fast as I’ll ever get it, and it seemed normal, so I’m going to let it ride.

I’m working on a way to camouflage that ugly weld right now!!;)
 
So I took it out for a ride this morning and got it as fast as I’ll ever get it, and it seemed normal, so I’m going to let it ride.

I’m working on a way to camouflage that ugly weld right now!!;)

Sorry, I sidetracked your thread man. As long as that repair is solid, you're in no danger. Build on and have fun.
 
Sorry, I sidetracked your thread man. As long as that repair is solid, you're in no danger. Build on and have fun.

No worries! I appreciate the heads up. My son has got into bikes and he’s riding a lot of my bikes now, so I’m glad I checked.
 
I managed to find a way to camouflage the head tube repair pretty well. Most of the chrome on the frame cleaned up pretty well except the repair on the head tube and the seat post. I painted the head tube red and taped it back to points like the old tank bikes, and I decided to paint the seat tube semi gloss black. It looks really cool to me. With the right backdrop it almost appears that the seat tube is not there.
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Great camo job on that head tube ! And your paint job is right on 'points'!
This is shaping up to be a favorite of mine, coming together already in the early going.
Is it possible to get that front rack bent 'up' a bit more to horizontally match the rear rack and the chain guard line? It's the only line that doesn't seem to flow with the bike right now.
RaT oN~!
 
Great camo job on that head tube ! And your paint job is right on 'points'!
This is shaping up to be a favorite of mine, coming together already in the early going.
Is it possible to get that front rack bent 'up' a bit more to horizontally match the rear rack and the chain guard line? It's the only line that doesn't seem to flow with the bike right now.
RaT oN~!

Yeah, I’m going to try to do that. It definitely looks kinda funky going downhill - to the point I’ve been considering taking it off, but I think it would look kinda cool if it was flat across the top.
 
Some previous owner of this bike was a RAT at heart it seems!

Can’t say I’ve seen Fuel Line race pedals before!:) ;)
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Yeah, I’m going to try to do that. It definitely looks kinda funky going downhill - to the point I’ve been considering taking it off, but I think it would look kinda cool if it was flat across the top.

Add some sort of extensions so that it is parallel to the ground like the rear rack.
Digging the paint work.
 
Cool, just make sure they don't roll when your feet need traction on them. :D

I’m going to change them - one of them is pretty crunchy. It’s just cool to see people’s fixes for things sometimes.
When I got this bike years ago it had a piece of thick single strange wire tied around several times on the brake tab on the hub. I wish I had a picture of that. I tossed it when I took the rear wheel off and changed out the tube back then.
 
Yeah, I’m going to try to do that. It definitely looks kinda funky going downhill - to the point I’ve been considering taking it off, but I think it would look kinda cool if it was flat across the top.
Just take some of the bend out on the rack bars going downward. That will bring it up horizontal. One other way would be to take some bend out of the frame's downtube which would change the angle of the whole front end, but would be more involved.
 

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