The Schwinn Dixie Dreamcycle

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Story time: So last Wednesday, I got an email response to my Craigslist ad for these 2 Schwinn frames.
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Called the guy, arranged a meeting, the usual. We meet, and the guy, Allan, brings his custom-built board track-inspired motor bike that he fabricated himself to show me what he hopes to do with my frames.
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He's looking to use the 2 frames I have to build his next motorbike. Unfortunately, they aren't what he's looking for, as he needs something with bigger tubing than what I have. No worries, I understand. We get talking about his bike and the others he built, and I ask him if he does custom fabrication for clients, figuring he might be able to help me with some of my bike projects, like Schwinn Dixie. He does, and he was all on board for helping me with my projects!

Fast forward to Sunday, yesterday. I make the hour-long drive over to the small airport where Allan's equipment is, and he gives me tour, which includes two of his other motorbikes. He pulls out this bike out and lets me take it for a spin. He hops on the board track racer, and we cruise around the compound together for a bit.
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Then Allan busts out his award-winning Outlaw, with a whopping 50+ mph 8 horsepower! And to my genuine fear, he shows me how to operate it. I should mention, up until this Sunday, I had never really rode a motorcycle before. So, I was pretty nervous. Nevertheless, I get on it and cruise around for a few minutes. I mostly babied it, but I could tell this bike wanted to go! This thing is a riot!
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After riding the motorbikes around for a bit, we went over the Schwinn. I needed Allan's help to replace the steerer tube on the fork I want to use, smooth out the fenders, and touch up a spot on the frame. So he starts cutting up the fork and the steerer tube donor.
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Unfortunately, I forgot to take into consideration that the handlebar stem needs to be able to fit inside a certain depth, which the sleeves inside the forks prevented. So, we accidentally measured once and cut twice. Allan's like "no problem, I got another fork we could use." So he pulls a fork out from under his work bench, and after checking out measurements twice, he cut the steerer tube off and welded it up to the fork I wanted to use.
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I didn't get a lot of photos of the other progress we made, partly because I couldn't get a good angle for a shot, mostly because I was just enjoying the whole experience. Still, I did shoot a few photos of the end results. Thanks to Allen, I can now use the fork that was mangled in the last Build Off, the fenders are nice and straight, and the couple of holes on the back of the seat tube were filled and filed smoothish. Best of all, Allan offered to do it all free of charge! (Not that stopped me from offering to pay him. He politely turned down payment, but I'll be keeping an eye out for any parts he needs for his projects.)
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We still had some time to kill, and what we did next was probably the highlight of highlights from yesterday's adventure: Allan taught me how to weld! I think what we did was TIG welding, since I fed the welding rod by hand, but I don't know for sure. We started with some scrap thin sheet metal he had laying around. He placed the spot welds to get me started, and explained the process in a way that just clicked. Basically, I heat the two metal pieces I want to join until they glow "cherry red," then I melt my welding rod until it "flows" into the spot I want it to. I also want my weld to "flow" or blend into the previous weld. After I did my first weld, Allan bent the metal back to test how solid my weld was. The metal bent, but not the weld!
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We tried welding something a little thicker next. Once again, Allan got it started for me. Took a little more heat, but I was able to get it fairly easily.
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How that weld looks cleaned up.
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I was genuinely grinning from ear to ear, especially after Allan told me I did a great job for my first welds. Even cooler, Allan's offered to teach me some more whenever I want to come over again!

We ended up cooling off in his office and shooting the breeze for a while after working on the bike and welding, but I had a blast the whole time I was there. I not only have a new resource to help me with my bike projects, but a new teacher and friend as well! And thanks to Allan's help, all the hard parts of this build are now out of the way! All that's left to do now is strip the paint off the fenders and fork, order the few parts I don't have, get everything else sandblasted and powder coated, and get everything assembled! I still have most of the week left before I start my house/pet-sitting gig, so I should be able to make a decent amount of progress before then!
Super cool, dude. Nice to meet awesome like minded people. Nice work on your project, it's coming along great!
 
Can't say I've made a ton of progress this week since Sunday. I've mostly just been getting ready for this house/pet-sitting that I started just yesterday, so aside from ordering a few parts, all I've done is just mockup Schwinn Dixie with all the parts Allan fixed for me. It looks like a mess right now, but I love how the fork and fenders look on the bike! There's an even amount of space between the frame and front fender, which I couldn't get with a Schwinn-style fork. The fenders are nice and round, with the tires filling them in nicely enough. This bike is getting so close to completion I can hardly believe it! Odds are this will be the last mockup before I strip the fenders and forks of lead paint and disassemble the wheels in preparation for sandblasting and powder coating.
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I already got a few of the finishing pieces for the bike this week. I got the handlebar grips from my local bike shop.
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The most critical piece however is this white seat. It's got bigger springs than I expected, but it should be plenty comfortable for my purposes. There's just one small problem...
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I don't have an easy way to mount the seat to my 5/8" layback seat post. The mounting hardware is meant for one of those modern seat posts. I have these 2 adapter pieces that I thought would work with what I have, but they don't fit on the mount that came with the seat (it's the shiny one on the left.) If that wasn't bad enough, none of the other seat mounts will work, not without some modification. I did find that I have a seat post that fits the frame and can accommodate the seat's original hardware, but I can't get it to go down inside the frame more than 4 inches. So, I'm stuck with two options: modify the seat mount to fit the layback seat post I have, and buy a seat post shim that will hopefully work, or take this other seat post I have that already fits the frame and the seat, and just modify that to fit better. I know Allan can modify the seat post, as he did so on his own bikes, and although it won't look as "vintage" as I'd like, it would be functional and arguably cheaper...

So, I'm not sure which way to go on the seat/seat post. One sounds good because it'll look vintage, but the other option sounds simpler, easier, and less costly.
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That's it for now. More updates soon to come!
 
Okay, so I failed to mention it a week ago, but Allan and I were unable to take those old pedals apart to get to the bearings. Kind of a bummer, but that just gave me an excuse to order these bad boys online. I just got these in the mail this past weekend, but I only just opened them up earlier today.
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I'm not sure if it's a manufacturing error, or one of those "do it yourself" kind of deals, but only the left pedal seems to have any grease in the bearings. The left pedal moves well enough, but the right pedal is pretty stiff. You can see the bearings inside the right pedals, but not the left. So... do I just try to squeeze some Park Tool grease into the pedal myself, or do I just try to exchange them out?
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Still, I mocked them up on the bike to see how they fit, and they fit perfectly!
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Also, since I didn't show it last time, here's that seat post that fits the seat's stock hardware and the bike itself. As you can see though, I can't get the seat post to go any lower.
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Part of me just wants to cut off just enough to get the seat down as low as it can possibly go, and forget trying to make a layback seat post out of this one seat post. Another part of me wants to sit this seat down as close to the frame and rear fender as possible. I'm just worried that if I try to use a layback seat post that only goes so far down the seat tube, I'll mess up the frame over a short span of time. It may not be the most stylish option, but I think just shortening the seat post until I can get the seat about where it is in this mockup is the safest option. I can sit comfortably with it at this height, and I can always come back and try to solve the layback seat post option later. Right now, I just want to get this bike done so I can finally ride it and enjoy it.
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I might drive over to Dad's shop later today and shorten up that seat post today. After that's done, I might also start stripping the fenders and fork of the old lead paint later either this evening or tomorrow morning.
 
Okay, so I failed to mention it a week ago, but Allan and I were unable to take those old pedals apart to get to the bearings. Kind of a bummer, but that just gave me an excuse to order these bad boys online. I just got these in the mail this past weekend, but I only just opened them up earlier today.
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I'm not sure if it's a manufacturing error, or one of those "do it yourself" kind of deals, but only the left pedal seems to have any grease in the bearings. The left pedal moves well enough, but the right pedal is pretty stiff. You can see the bearings inside the right pedals, but not the left. So... do I just try to squeeze some Park Tool grease into the pedal myself, or do I just try to exchange them out?
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Still, I mocked them up on the bike to see how they fit, and they fit perfectly!
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Also, since I didn't show it last time, here's that seat post that fits the seat's stock hardware and the bike itself. As you can see though, I can't get the seat post to go any lower.
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Part of me just wants to cut off just enough to get the seat down as low as it can possibly go, and forget trying to make a layback seat post out of this one seat post. Another part of me wants to sit this seat down as close to the frame and rear fender as possible. I'm just worried that if I try to use a layback seat post that only goes so far down the seat tube, I'll mess up the frame over a short span of time. It may not be the most stylish option, but I think just shortening the seat post until I can get the seat about where it is in this mockup is the safest option. I can sit comfortably with it at this height, and I can always come back and try to solve the layback seat post option later. Right now, I just want to get this bike done so I can finally ride it and enjoy it.
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I might drive over to Dad's shop later today and shorten up that seat post today. After that's done, I might also start stripping the fenders and fork of the old lead paint later either this evening or tomorrow morning.
Those off brand pedals always have some type of casting imperfections or something else on the inside that seem to drag the bearings. I buy the knockoff VP Bear trap pedals and will always take them all the way down and use emory cloth on the spindles and then clean and grease the bearings myself until they spin smoothly

YMMV
 
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I had the same problem not getting my seat post in beyond a certain point with my Felt Classic build.
When i looked into the seat tube with a torch i noticed corrosion at the spot the stuck seat post came loose. I scraped the inside of the seat tube with a flat mtb handlebar, then used plenty of grease and with a little twisting and turning the post went all in.
Here is an idea for a diy laid-back seat post using an MTB handlebar thingy, don,t know what they are called:
IMG_20210816_234639.jpg
 
Took the seat post over to my Dad's shop, where he helped me shorten it to the right length. I'll admit, the seat doesn't sit as low as I'd like from an aesthetic point of view, but it's good enough for riding, and that's what really matters.
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I flipped the mounting hardware upside-down and used a mount that had no stopper to help get the seat as low as I could. Far from perfect, but It's plenty functional.
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By the way, here's one of the two pets I'm looking after for this week. This is Lola, a 6-year-old lab who absolutely craves attention. I let her out while I shot these photos. As you can see, she's very photogenic, when I can get her to stay still for more than 5 seconds.
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That's all for now. Stay tuned for more!
 
I had the same problem not getting my seat post in beyond a certain point with my Felt Classic build.
When i looked into the seat tube with a torch i noticed corrosion at the spot the stuck seat post came loose. I scraped the inside of the seat tube with a flat mtb handlebar, then used plenty of grease and with a little twisting and turning the post went all in.
Here is an idea for a diy laid-back seat post using an MTB handlebar thingy, don,t know what they are called:
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Well it's not just corrosion that's stopping the seat post in my frame. There's a weld about where the bottom tank tube connects to the seat tube that's interfering with the seat post. I tried filing it away, but that didn't work. Allan, the guy that helped me fix a bunch of parts last week, wasn't sure how to fix it either. That's definitely a cool layback seat post idea, though!
 
Those off brand pedals always have some type of casting imperfections or something else on the inside that seem to drag the bearings. I buy the knockoff VP Bear trap pedals and will always take them all the way down and use emory cloth on the spindles and then clean and grease the bearings myself until they spin smoothly

YMMV
Well, I can't say I'd want a set of bear traps on this bike. Not the sort of vibe I'm going for on this bike. Any suggestions on how to fix what I've got?
 
Can you turn that black part of the seat mount upsidedown as well to get the seat to go lower?

Anyway, your lab has my vote... ;)
 
Well, I can't say I'd want a set of bear traps on this bike. Not the sort of vibe I'm going for on this bike. Any suggestions on how to fix what I've got?
I wasn't suggesting them, I was making a comparison. If you can remove the spindles you could do the same
 
Can you turn that black part of the seat mount upsidedown as well to get the seat to go lower?

Anyway, your lab has my vote... ;)
It already is upside down, but yeah, I can flip it over. The problem is that the seat post tapers about where that piece is, and if I brought the seat any lower, it might not grip the seat post correctly. I can try it though.
 
I wasn't suggesting them, I was making a comparison. If you can remove the spindles you could do the same
Oh. Honestly, I don't know how to remove the spindles on these pedals. It looks like I'd have to find a way to bend back the tabs holding the pedals together first, but then I have no idea if the guts can be removed. I tried to do that on those other pedals, and although disassembling them was pretty easy, there was no real way to remove the spindles that I could find. Plus, I really don't want to mess these pedals up if I can avoid it.
 
I've never had troubles with cheap pedals that oil can be squirted into. Usually the threaded part of the spindle bearings are open enough to drool oil into the pedal. I oil them up good. Excess oil will find its way out but your bearings will thank you. Manufacturing tolerance flaws that drag will wear into compliance given enough time. If the pedal is real hard to turn I would send them back. I only rebuild/regrease better quality pedals that are easy to take apart/put together. All others get the oil treatment.
 
Just another thought about that seatpost fit into the seatpost tube. If you get the right size reamer for the inside of the tube that would fix the issues with seatpost fit. Your post is either 7/8" or 13/16" OD so the reamer would be one of these sizes. Bicycle framemakers will ream seatposts to get rid of bumps that will mar aluminum seatposts and so post will slide in easy.
 
I've never had troubles with cheap pedals that oil can be squirted into. Usually the threaded part of the spindle bearings are open enough to drool oil into the pedal. I oil them up good. Excess oil will find its way out but your bearings will thank you. Manufacturing tolerance flaws that drag will wear into compliance given enough time. If the pedal is real hard to turn I would send them back. I only rebuild/regrease better quality pedals that are easy to take apart/put together. All others get the oil treatment.
What oil do you typically use for pedals, and how does the process work?
 
Love black labs. Had one years ago and she was great. There was never enough ball throwing into the river for her. She would go until she had trouble swimming and I would stop. Not her.
My family used to have a blonde lab and a chocolate lab when I was a kid. They were both nice dogs. This black lab I'm looking after right now is a lot like the one you described. She's very energetic and she loves to play.
 
Just another thought about that seatpost fit into the seatpost tube. If you get the right size reamer for the inside of the tube that would fix the issues with seatpost fit. Your post is either 7/8" or 13/16" OD so the reamer would be one of these sizes. Bicycle framemakers will ream seatposts to get rid of bumps that will mar aluminum seatposts and so post will slide in easy.
What's a reamer? The issue isn't with the seat post fitting the frame, it's a weld or something inside the frame blocking the seat post from going down further into the seat tube. I tried fixing the problem, but there doesn't seem to be an easy fix for it.
 

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