Ignoying ratatrocious junkmaggot

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Joined
Sep 17, 2013
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Location
The middle of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan
Since no one is building a rat I thought I’d toss some of my junk in the build off ring.
Bones from a junk pile at a closed down iron mining village.
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More tomorrow.
 
The front fork had a drop cut off and the only other fork I have with a long enough tube is bent. I used a furniture clamp to squeeze it shut to 120 mm and put a front coaster brake wheel in there. It’s still bent, but I like that. Good enough, perfect. In the past the frame was broken and it has been repaired with gob welds. Perfect. It’s got a dog leg crank and if it’s not bent I’ll replace it with one of my junk regular cranks. I have alloy bars that seem to be oversized and are scratched and gouged from people trying to make them fit. I spread the gooseneck to and pounded in the bars. Perfect again.
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All that’s left to do is attach the rear fender stays, cobble a chain together from the original broken chain using some new chain bits in my junk. It’s almost 4pm, too dark to see well with old eyes. Front coaster brake wheel with heavy wire holding the brake arm. I’ll need to bring vice grips to remove the wire for a tire change. The tires are very rotted. The wheels have massine dents and are about as true as potato chips.
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Rear loose fender stays.
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The seat cover is so rotted every time you touch it black dirt junk peels off. I’ll replace the seat with this one, the cover already rotted off.
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The fender stays are attached.
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The seat post is unstuck. It’s the wedge type instead of a pinch bolt so the Vice Grips are a safety measure to keep it from falling into the seat tube.
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The kick stand stop was shot so it just kept rotating like an axle causing the bike to drop. Instead of using a good one from my stash I gob welded a bolt stop on it.
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Chain, seat, coaster arm straps and grips and I’ll be done.
 
I might try and use some dried ears of corn from the feed store for grips. Maggot rat details. Gotta use some bailing wire, 1930s duct tape. To quote Bob Dylan, “everything is broken”. Broken frame, broken bars, broken stem, broken post, broken wheels, broken tires, broken seat, broken pedals, broken crank, broken fork, broken fenders, mended broken chain.
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wavy bent fork.
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Pistol shell valve stem covers. 26x1 3/8 tires, so it meets the skinny wheel criteria.
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I rode it. It’s hard to pedal and steer, a medicine bike. A few more junk maggot detail and I’ll be done. If the freezing rain stops and it’s not too icy I’ll go bar hopping with it on Friday.
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Done. Changed the bars. Drilled out old red heater hose and wine corks for grips.View attachment 221812
Miss the other bars, in my young adult days we use to put dropbars on everything and flip them up because they were the perfect size to hold a Canadian 24 of beer.
 
the bar change was clutch. This is the build-offs true rat. Well done.
 
We use to flip the bars up and place the case in-between the bars and the handles would fit at the top a great Canadian past time. Our bike looked much like that right down to the vice grips. Great build.
 
I found out the frame is a mid 1950s Ross. It’s an original rat rod bike built out of junk, probably around 1960 as that’s when the guy I got it from was given it by his neighbor. It’s got a Perry rear coaster and Bendix front coaster. I wanted to preserve the original rat make do ethic. I had to replace the fork as the fork blades were welded shut with washers and I couldn’t remove the wheel. I also replaced the seat, chain and put on bars as it didn’t have any. Nice original make do rat from before there was the term rat rods.
 
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The bike is so far gone, that it deserves a different category: maggot bikes only.

As crusty, odd, mismatched, madmax and frankenbike as possible.

I can’t imagine that you guys have never done a maggot bike challenge before…
 

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