1947 Dayton

[someguy83]

I picked up this frame at a motorcycle swap meet this past summer. I thought it looked like my Hiawatha, which I wanted to alter, but everyone was telling me to leave the Hiawatha the way it was.So here is my chance to build what I want and how I want.

The frame looks solid but covered in red house paint applied with a brush uggh :? Oh well, good thing I work as a spray technician and am able to lay down some flat black once its stripped. :lol:
The fork was broke when I bought it. The break looked pretty clean and a welder buddy of mine fixed it up for me. Before:

Close up of the break together:

After my buddy welded it together and I sand blasted it at work:

Heres a shot of the front fender after some straightening and sandblasting:

Heres the mounting hole where the screw goes through into the bridge of the fork (it will need a little work :roll: ):

 

[someguy83]

Heres a shot of the sweet heart skiptooth:

The sprocket is bent and hits the frame but I think I can flatten it back out with some friendly persuasion
And while we're looking at the bottom portion of the bike, here's the serial number:

And the drop outs:

 

[someguy83]

Well I figured I would have some work ahead of me and there were several parts that I would need before I could have this thing rolling. I figured I might want something to sit on so I put the task before you all to find a seat for me and udall came to my rescue he sent me this one here:

And here is the bottom side:



And here it is after being torn apart stripped sand blasted and primed:


The seat did not have the mounting bracket so I was able to contact battenkustoms and he hooked me up with the seat post and brackets here:

(This is after sandblasting the rust off of it and priming with Rustoleum)

 

[SCHWINNRAY69]

Great start

 

[37fleetwood]

looking good, just wanted to post so I could follow your build easier.
the sprocket is the Colson style, still very cool looking. glad you saved the fork the Huffman forks aren't easy to find.

 

[someguy83]

....the hip bones connected to the leg bone, the leg bones connected to the foot bone, the foot bones connected to the...... uh oh I don't have any pedals!!!! Oh well back to the site to see what I can find :lol:
Oggy had these sittin around and they were the right diameter for my crank arms:

The bearings were nice and free so no work to be done here except to bolt them on!

 

[someguy83]

Lets see I've got the frame, I have a place to sit and pedals to transfer leg power to the rear wheel. Which brings me to my next thought for this bike- The last time I owned a bike it was a 21 speed mtb. You get a little spoiled with all those gearing combinations and I decided I wanted something more than single speed. Udall had a slightly unusual rear hub that came off the ORIENT EXPRESS bike build available and unusual/ratty is the whole theme for this bike.



Since this is the first time building I totally overlooked the concept of different numbers of holes in hubs. I thought I could swap out the old hub for the new but then realized that the new was 40 hole and the old rim is 36. Gee that won't work now will it? So I had to then buy the old rim from the ORIENT EXPRESS and relace the hub. (Forty hole hubs are NOT easy to find, nor are they cheap)
Well this now leaves me with a decent 36 hole coaster brake rim and hub, hmm I could sell it to get more money for the bike. Wait a minute I need a front wheel or I won't be going anywhere! Well lets just see if I can set up a suicide front brake using the coaster brake hub and wheel! Stay tuned this will either be really cool or a miserable failure!

 

[OUTLAW]

i am putting a freewheel and coaster brake system on my Burrito. there is a post out there about another one that was done. i have it in my post about my Burrito if you want to look for it or the other post. maybe someone will know where that post is and put it here for you. the project looks good so far. have fun.

Outlaw

 

[someguy83]

Well its that time of the year when its cold and tax season is upon us and I don't have any work to do, so I get a day off :? That means.... catch up on some stuff I have wanted to do for a while, including finish stripping the frame...... Will post pictures of progress soon but for now here's what we got....

I sprayed the crank and the head tube bearing cups with some simple green degreaser to clean them up a bit and hopefully loosen any dirt that may want to fight the process of removing the crank. more to come soon after lunch.....

 

[someguy83]

Alright I got back out to the garage and found that my plan worked the degreaser loosened the crud on the parts and everything came apart nicely. Took the fender and the kickstand off....

Took off the crank and sprocket....

My biggest fear when pulling the crank apart was that I would find a bunch of loose bearings and/or lose one, but I was happy to find that they were captive bearings and of course coated in sludge....

Those went into the bucket of degreaser with other parts to soak.....

After soaking awhile(maybe an hour) and a little scrubbin with a brush, I think they cleaned up well...


(Does anybody know if these are or could be the original bearings?)
Cleaned up the crank arms a little and found a casting mark on the mid section, it says SMB......

(Anybody that knows what this means or if it has any meaning, let me know)(Not that it really matters but odd random facts always intrique me :lol: )
Well thats all for now....
Next time the frame will be stripped of that ugly house paint

 

[37fleetwood]

the sprocket and crank are definitely not the originals but who knows the bearings may be, National was one of the big providers of the time, they may also have come with the Colson crank and sprocket. the Huffman crank would have been originally marked with Huffmans mark.

 

[someguy83]

I have been stripping the paint off the frame today and may have found something a bit unusual.......
I have sent a PM to 37Fleetwood to possibly get down to the bottom of it.....
Might be wishful thinking but might be something VERY COOL.....
I know right now I am teasing all who may read this but I want to keep my hopes in check for a bit. So as soon as I find out from fleetwood I will reveal what may be a great find. Fleetwood if you read trhis and have not checked your messages then pls do so I apologize again it is a lengthy message!

 

[someguy83]

Well the frame is NAKED ....


Here is what I found while stripping the paint today... I was using a wire wheel chucked into my electric drill, that I clamped into my work table (kinda made a redneck bench grinder/wire wheel, but it works) and the house paint was coming off really easy. I was not using much force against the wheel so I figured it would just sluff off the house paint and reveal the factory color. But in fact as it was coming off it was revealing clean shiny metal! Random thoughts were flying through my head at this point....
1 Did somebody strip the frame before me and then BRUSH ugly red paint on it? Well that wouldn't make much sense to me but who knows?
2 Was this a frame that was originally in chrome?????? So I sent fleetwood a message to which he answered that he did not know of any factory chromed frames and also pointed out that if it were chromed from the factory then the joints would not be brass colored but chromed as well. So although it would have been sweet to find a chrome frame I am sad to say that NO it is NOT.
So it is my guess that at some point the frame was stripped and then repainted but done horribly. But on the bright side, that miserable looking paint job had in fact preserved a great looking frame. Now this discovery leads me to a new decision to make. I originally had planned on shooting it a flat black, but the new thought is..........maybe I could polish it up a bit and then clear coat it. The fork and fenders are not good candidates for cleaning and polishing by any means so I would still be spraying those some color. I already have the flat black.
What do you guys think? 1 All flat black OR 2 Polished up frame with flat black fork and fenders? And either color scheme will eventually include some striping on the fenders in most likely red and white and/or yellow. Let me know what y'all think.

 

[OUTLAW]

lets see. if this were my bike i would polish it up and clear coat it after you put on some nice pit striping on the frame. with the flat black on forks and fenders i would think wow. maybe red brick tires too. ok, your call.

Outlaw

 

[37fleetwood]

what about painting the frame darts and pin striping it then clearing it leaving most of the frame shiny metal? I don't think I've ever seen anyone do that.

 

[Tailwinds]

what about painting the frame darts and pin striping it then clearing it leaving most of the frame shiny metal? I don't think I've ever seen anyone do that.

That would be really cool. The bare frame looks great!

 

[SCHWINNRAY69]

That frame looks good naked :shock:

 

[someguy83]

what about painting the frame darts and pin striping it then clearing it leaving most of the frame shiny metal? I don't think I've ever seen anyone do that.

I hesitate to ask this...what do you mean by FRAME DARTS?

 

[BrunneCustoms]

Me I'd do the fork in flat black like you said. Fenders Black but I'd add some stripes or something. You might find that with the forks black and the fender black there is a void of sorts at the front of your bike. I say it with the Coke bike build that I am still finishing off. I had to add white to the red fenders to break up the over kill of red.
I'm not sure what they mean by darts but I have an idea of what they mean (I better let them explain in case I'm wrong). I'd add a little bit of black to the frame in the form of pin stripes or something. It could turn out to be a really cool look. The flat black will contrast the polished look nicely. Good luck I'm sure what ever you decide it will be great.

 

[someguy83]

Me I'd do the fork in flat black like you said. Fenders Black but I'd add some stripes or something. You might find that with the forks black and the fender black there is a void of sorts at the front of your bike. I say it with the Coke bike build that I am still finishing off. I had to add white to the red fenders to break up the over kill of red.

The fork was sprayed flat black tonight and the fenders I was going to spray black tomorrow and then this summer they will be pin striped. I was thinking red white and yellow for the striping colors. We have a ratrod car show every year around here and there is no shortage of pin stripers at the event, so it will be perfect place and time to have it done.