STBO Ms. Higgins

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idiotboy

idiotboy

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I bought this in June for parts, skirt guards, truss rods, skip tooth chain, air cooled hub etc.
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it appears to be complete, original, and in pretty good shape. I’m gonna take it apart, address any issues, clean and grease the bearings and hubs, replace the dry rotted tires and go from there. The only visible damage is a dent in the front fender
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a little hammer and dolly time should take care of that. Disassembly should start tomorrow after work…
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Most I've seen have the pointy dropouts, but the 50's had a rounded dropout. The chain wheel also shows it to be a Murray, the earlier ones had a solid midsection while the later ones were completely slotted.
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Unbuilding is finished, everything came apart without a fight and all the parts look good, I think that’s a first for me 😁
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definitely a Murray, serial number says MOS-N, then MOD 502 250 then 334759
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from what I found, the MOS means it was sold to Sears and the N means 1957 but I could be wrong, that happens a lot
 
MOD was a Sears bike. MOS is 1953 from a list I have, but I would need to research the whole thing again to try to get a better idea of what the N is for. There are various lists of Murray numbers out there, but the one I have used seems to be the best one.
 
Wildcat said:
MOD was a Sears bike. MOS is 1953 from a list I have, but I would need to research the whole thing again to try to get a better idea of what the N is for. There are various lists of Murray numbers out there, but the one I have used seems to be the best one.
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Yeah 1953 is more likely. I am considering jumping in with a 1957 Higgins, and it was a one year only model (and headlight) without skirts.
 
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Wildcat said:
I'd like to see that 57 Higgins.
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Here's mine as I found it. Was really lucky to score a complete light from a local collector. I've seen the men's version in red.

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Here's a complete original (w/ some additional accessories).

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I’ve hit a snag already, I started taking the wheels apart last night, I was gonna clean the rims, clean and grease the hubs and replace the spokes.
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came apart nicely but this front rim is bad, shaped like a pringles and a dent, it’s worse than it looks in the picture. I’ll search the wheel pile but I know I don’t have white with red pinstripes so this bike is probably gonna go in a different direction than clean everything and put it back together like it was….
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I made a temporary clamp jig (big wood jaws) for my vise to straighten a rim bent like that. I worked the dent out with other means. You can do it. Save it.
 
I tried to get the dent out first and made it worse so I stopped. I’m not going to throw the rim in the trash yet but I’m not going to put it back on this bike right now either. I dug a pair of wheels out of the pile with decent chrome rims, I’m gonna do some math and see if I can use the spokes too…
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