The Old West

A few small steps meant big progress for the project yesterday!

First (not pictured,) I dug through my stash of headset bearing cups to see if I had a pair of AMF cups that would work for Old West. Fortunately, I found 3 in perfectly usable condition, and one other in "good enough" condition. I cleaned them all up with a brass wire brush and some #0000 steel wool and set them aside to use later.

Next, I removed some more cups from a pair of donor frames I had sitting in storage. Both required some... unique methods... to remove.

On one frame, I couldn't get my punch to butt up against the cup inside the headtube due to this piece inside, so I had to use a large adjustable wrench and a hammer to knock them out from the outside.


Next, I decided to attack this 20" Buzz Bike that had been fighting me since I got it last year. For whatever reason, I could not get that fork nut to come loose for the longest time. In fact, I was beginning to round off the corners of it! So I finally clamped the fork down in my dad's vice, grabbed the big wrench, and told this little Buzz Bike that I wasn't asking it to come apart; I was commanding it to come apart.


Thankfully, it listened to me for once.


Now I have 4 more bearing cups that might work. I won't know for sure until I get them all cleaned up to really assess them. I also have 2 bearings that might be salvageable as well. Unfortunately, the races were grooved, so those won't be any good, but I should have what I need here at home.


I also finished cleaning up the seat post, bottom bracket races, and the threads on the crank yesterday.


I had cleaned up one post with the wire wheel at the shop, but while it got rid of the rust, it also depleted the chrome finish. So, I cleaned up the other post with some #0000 steel wool, and I think I like that look better.


Also some close-ups of a few other parts I cleaned earlier.


Now that I've knocked out those parts, I'm positive I can rebuild this bike with time to spare before the 20th. I won't be able to do anything on it today, but I should be able to work on it again tomorrow morning.

Made a little more progress on The Old West yesterday. I spent some time shining up the chrome on the handlebars, handlebar stem, crank and chainring. I don't have a ton of photos to share this time, partly because I was more focused on making some progress than documenting said progress, but mostly because there wasn't much of a difference between my before and after pics.

I'm swapping out the original handlebars for a set from another AMF bike. The bars this bike originally had have a slight bend to them, but the replacement thankfully is nice and straight.


I decided to use the original stem though, as I didn't have an exact match in any better condition than what I had. I think it'll be fine either way.

Made some more progress on this Western Flyer last night. I spent some time going over the fork, tank, seat and chain guard with rubbing compound and SC Johnson Paste Wax to help shine everything up before I put it all back together. I also cleaned up the insides as well as the threads on the fork. I didn't get the most dramatic changes before and after cleaning up some of the parts, as most of them had been treated with rubbing compound before.


Before I started cleaning the fenders, I wanted to try and straighten out this one fender brace. Unfortunately, I didn't have any luck trying to do that here at home, so I'll have to run it by my dad's shop to use his vice to stand a better chance of fixing it.


It's been a bit more difficult to stay motivated on this project than I thought, but I'm slowing finding my rhythm again. I'm hoping to make a good deal of progress today, but we'll see how that goes. I don't know if I'll be able to finish the bike by the 20th at the rate I'm going, but I'm going to try my best.

Pondo said:

Keep after it, you've made great progress so far!

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Thanks Pondo!

Late to bed and late to rise,
Is not a decision I would advise.
-Me, at 11:41pm CST

Once again, I didn't get nearly as much done as I would've liked today due to my poor sleep schedule. Thankfully, I did make a bit of progress today, and I got a feeling tomorrow's going to be even better.

Today, I picked out a set of wheels I can use temporarily until I can get the correct wheels trued. I might not even have to worry about disassembling the hubs and repacking everything, which will be a huge time-saver!

Next, I dug through my crown races to see if I could find the one I planned to use before, which thankfully, I did. I wasn't sure which top race I planned to use though, but I found plenty of matches to the one I needed, albeit with some cleaning required. So, I loaded up my races and took them along with the front fender over to my dad's shop to clean them up.


Most of the crown races weren't in the best shape, as there were slight grooves and pits on most of them, but most of the top races were in good working order.

Next, I used the vice and some pliers to fix the bent fender brace on the front fender. I also adjusted the other braces as needed while I was at it. I wasn't able to get that bent fender brace perfectly straightened up, but for this old bike, I think it's good enough. I'd still like to know how to do it better for future reference, though.


Now that that's out of the way, I'm hoping to make a great deal of progress on this bike tomorrow. I just need to get to bed, like now.

Well, I didn't make any progress on the Western Flyer these last few days, but today, I finally hit another milestone.

I still hadn't picked out the bottom bracket bearings and bearing cups, nor the headset bearings, so I started going through my stash to see if I had what I needed. At first, I was planning on using these modern Huffy bearings and cups for ease of replacement, but the cups felt just a little too big for the frame. Luckily, I had a good matching set of cups and bearings that I could use. I also found more than enough headset bearings I could use, and picked out the 4 best-looking ones to clean up. I soaked them in my ultrasonic cleaner, hosed and dried them off, and I was good to go! I thought it wouldn't take me that long, but it ended up being more time-consuming than I expected. Still, I'm glad I got it done!


While I had those parts soaking in the ultrasonic cleaner, I spent some time cleaning up the frame with rubbing compound and Johnson's Paste Wax. It didn't need much, but I did shine it up that much more. I also spent some time cleaning up the fender braces with a brass wire brush and some steel wool.


I didn't make my October 20th deadline, but it didn't matter in the end, as the family reunion that I aimed to have it built in time for was postponed due to my grandpa needing to go to the hospital for some kidney trouble. He's fine thankfully, but he's still in the hospital and may not leave for a while longer. I still plan to get this bike rolling, if not by the end of this week, then at least by the end of October.

BartRidesEternal said:

Love the progress you are posting! Those cleaned bearings look beautiful together.

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Thank you!

Made a little more progress today, but not nearly as much as I hoped.

I reinstalled the bearing cups.


Then I test fit the bottom bracket assembly and rear wheel. I wanted to make sure the sprocket and chainring lined up, and the easiest way I've found to do that is to place a yardstick against the chainring and see if it lines up with the rear sprocket. Fortunately, I managed to sort that out. However, I did notice that the space between my dropouts was just slightly narrower than the rear hub on my wheels, by like a millimeter. I don't think it's a big enough deal to bother widening the rear triangle, but it's something to note.


One thing I am concerned about is just how little room there is between the rear sprocket and the fender mounts on the dropouts. I don't know if the chain will clear the fender mounts or not, especially if I use a larger rear sprocket.


Granted, I also have the rear axle as far into the dropouts as it'll go, but it's still a concern.


I was planning to grease the bearings and install at least the fork and bottom bracket today, but I have a problem with my tube of grease. For some reason, I just can't get any of it to come out of the tube without pressing all my weight down on it, and even then it only oozes out a minuscule amount. It's far from empty, and the nozzle is cut open wider than I ever needed to on my previous grease tubes, but I still could only get enough grease out to coat a thin layer on the bearing cups before I inserted them into the frame. The grease itself doesn't feel any different than before, as it spreads the same as I'm used to, but I just can't make any progress greasing my bearings and other components when I need to literally stand on the tube just to get anything to come out!


Does anybody here know what's wrong with my tube of Park Tool grease? I'd hate to go out and buy another tube of grease when I still have enough left to build at least 2 more bikes.

Okay, I took way too long to get back on this project. Turns out I was able to just exchange that troublesome tube of grease for a new one at no extra cost.

My new goal is to get this bike rolling by the end of this week, as my grandpa, who gave me this bike 6 years ago, is in hospice at home now and I don't know how much longer he's got. I actually just visited him earlier this Monday and Tuesday. I'd like to at least get the bike in a rideable state in time to show him before he passes.

Yesterday, I mounted the tires to a set of temporary wheels, installed the crown race on the fork, and removed the rest of the rust and red paint off the fender pinstripes using rubbing compound and steel wool.


Today's goal is to finishing cleaning the fenders with rubbing compound and SC Johnson paste wax, and to begin reassembly of the bike. With any luck, I'll have Grandpa's bike fully assembled before sundown.

Okay, yesterday didn't go quite like I had hoped, but I do have more progress to report.

Yesterday, I started off by going over the front and rear fenders with rubbing compound (which I applied with a sock, and for the more oxidized areas, #0000 steel wool,) and SC Johnson paste wax. I got both fenders to shine up quite nicely, but man did it take more time and effort than expected...


One I finished with the fenders, I decided to do one last round of fitment tests before I greased and reassembled everything. I made sure the rear sprocket both cleared the fender mount and lined up with the chainring, which went well.


But I ran into issues with the fork. For some reason during the fitment test, no matter which races I used, once I had everything tightened down (and not even as tight as it could go,) the fork would not turn smoothly.


I don't believe it's the bearings, as they roll just fine, but I'm less sure about the cups and races. I tried adjusting the bearing cups so I was certain they were flush with the headtube, but I couldn't spot any differences with them after messing with them. I did notice that the crown race I had on the fork had an uneven lip, and measuring it with my calipers confirmed it.


I had another race I could use, but there were a couple issues with it. First, the steerer tube is bulged slightly where the handlebar stem seated, and I needed to bust out the hammer and steel punch to squeeze that race down past it. Second, once I got it on there, I learned that this race has a slightly narrower cone than what the bearings need. It's not a proper fit, and now I'm going to have to struggle to get that thing off of the fork. Great.


Odds are I'm going to have to find another AMF crown race or use the other one I had. I'm not quite sure how to proceed, so I'm not going to start final assembly until I get that sorted out.

While I'm not ready to finish assembling this old Western Flyer, that didn't stop me from slapping it together earlier today so I could at least show Grandpa how much I've done to fix it up so far while I still had time. After seeing it all together like this, I really want to get this bike done so I can start riding it!