Okay, this is a small, lackluster update, but I figured it was worth sharing.
First up, the bad: I tried using longer bolts and stacking washers to make the Schwinn sissy bar work, but to no avail. The clamps offer no room for the washers to lay flat like they need to. So my nicest sissy bar was pretty much useless for this bike.
The good: While I don't have a picture of it, I swapped out the crank for the one off of last year's MBBO entry,
Poison Apple. At this rate,
Poison Apple's going to be a donor bike. The crank cleared the Murray frame no problem, so I can pedal with confidence!
This past Thanksgiving weekend, I also met up with a friend in Missouri who I met at the Pleasant Hill Bicycle Swap Meet back in September. He knows how to recover seats, so I figured he could help teach me how to recover a banana seat. Not only did he give me some helpful tips, he even gave me some sample materials to help me find what I needed for the job. He even gave me a bunch of forks, mostly 20", for free!
I also bought another sissy bar off another friend for $10, which is in much better shape than any of the other sissy bars I have. It seems to be missing the clamps, but If I need to, I could just bolt the sissy bar directly to the frame.
I also bought some leather/pleather today for the seat cover.
Progress on the bike has been slow this past week, but I'm still working on it. I'm feeling substantially better since the crash, though my wrists and my right arm are still acting up. I'm probably not going to make much more progress this week, due to some stuff I'm trying to get done around the house before this weekend. Hopefully, I'll be able to pick back up where I left off soon.