1956 Schwinn Racer

[DesmoDog]

I started working on the front wheel today. This is not a rim I would normally use, but staying with the "if it functions it stays" mantra, I'll give it a go. There isn't going to be much "chrome" left in some sections once it cleaned up I'm afraid.

An aside - I hear people talk about cleaning rust off of chrome and how wonderful their elixer/method of choice is. Well yeah, those potions are nice for cleaning rust, but chrome doesn't rust. What is rusting is the steel underneath the chrome. You're not cleaning rust off of chrome, you're cleaning rust off of the steel that's exposed because the chrome plating is compromised. Nothing will bring it back short of stripping and rechroming it. Which is never going happen here. I have no idea what this will look like after it's been derustified, but the rusted areas won't be chrome anymore.

When I was looking for spokes for the rear wheel, someone was surprised at the length (290mm). Which got me thinking... as it turns out, this bike used a four cross spoke pattern on both the front and rear wheels. I tore down the rear wheel before I realized this, but here's what that looks like on the front.

Two of the first three spokes I tried to loosen were frozen. That didn't make me feel all warm and fuzzy, but they turned out to be the only bad ones on the wheel. I sprayed a little penetrating oil on them, gave it about 30 milliseconds to work, then hit them with a propane torch. They came apart with no issue after that.

I was surprised how smoothly the front hub spun, to the point I wonder if it hadn't been rebuilt along the way. It looked pretty good when I took it apart, the grease was discolored but not hard like in the headset and crank.

The cones have no locknut. When I took it apart I found out how they hold it in adjustment - the threads are modified in the areas the cones sit. That's not a great picture, there is an obvious pattern that shows it's intentional. If I had seen that before I had forgotten about it. Seems to work ok though?

A little light rust on the hub but mostly just grime.

It all cleaned up and went back together nicely

I ran out of time/inspiration to tackle getting the rust off the rim tonight. That will have to wait for a later post.

I did knock the pads out of the holders though. I'll compare the measurments to the Kool Stop replacements and add them to my list.

 

[DesmoDog]

I got one of the rims cleaned up.

It looks ok here

But this shot shows a more realistic condition

The cleaned rim is the same one as shown above.

 

[GuitarlCarl]

Old Schwinn chrome is more resilient than other makes for sure and you've got a good start cleaning it up. But when the chrome is gone, it's gone. Could strip it and rechrome it but I wouldn't. Too pricey for little return. But you can probably polish it a lot more and get it up to snuff. I've seen plain steel polished to almost chrome with a rag then a buffer and polish. The big mistake many folks make is steel wool. Not for chrome. Also the stem you've got is easy to find or replace with a Wald for little cash.

 

[DesmoDog]

I've got everything here to polish them, but with the condition of the paint on the frame I don't want to. I also don't want to get flakes of chrome in my buffer wheels (buffs?) but that's beside the point. I think the beat up look will go better with the dull spokes and abused paint. In fact I think the hubs are going to look slighly out of place as they're too shiny.

There are also a couple 3 speed Schwinns for sale around here that have better rims. I consdiered buying one of them just for the wheels but nope, gonna run the original stuff, if it's messed up, so be it as long as it works.

 

[DesmoDog]

I laced up the front wheel today. Here's a shot from a reality check I did to see how I was doing getting it dished correctly. The clean up on the rim turned out better than I was expecting, it will fit in fine with the look of the rest of the bike. Of course it will also start to flash rust the minute any condensation gets on it but we can't have everything!

I thought I could get away with installing the tires off a donor bike I have from another project, but no. They're too far gone. Putting pressure in them starts to open up the splitting instead of hiding it like it does sometimes when it's minor. Time for new tires I guess. I also had plans of using the tires off another donor I was going to buy for yet another project, but this morning when I looked at the ad again there was a sale pending. Oops, that's what I get for putting it off I guess. Anyway, here's what it looks like with a tire on it. The tire was spinning when I took the shot, I thought it might blur the moving stuff and make the tire look less trashed. ;-)

 

[Pondo]

Looking good! Nice job cleaning that chrome up. The chrome on the wheel is too far gone but the cleaned up wheel has a nice patina. The hub came out great!

 

[DesmoDog]

With the generous help of sdframe who sourced some spokes and a headset washer for me, I was able to make more progress on the Racer today.

The tires are just rim protectors, they're both further gone than I thought so I'll be ordering new ones. I'm not sure what's going on around here but it seems the bikes I had been watching as donors for my other Racer are all selling this weekend. My top two are gone, after another went earlier in the week. I need to just buy something when I see it!

I need to knock the rear fender back into shape before I install it. Or do I? I'll clean it up before I decide.

I'm not going to use the grips or the stock bars either. They're both just too far gone. Not gonna do it! I'll probably use the bars off the donor Breeze.

So a chain, tires, seat, grips, maybe brake cables and it should be rideable? The trigger shifter seems a bit messed up but I think I can fix that. Oh yeah, brake pads too. That's not a huge list... this thing shouldn't take all that mich more time to get back on the road. Not bad for a bike that wouldn't even roll a couple weeks ago!

 

[DesmoDog]

TL:dr version - I'm making progress but no updates until tech issues are worked out.

Alright, so this little guy hasn't sat untouched these past few days. I've been doing some small stuff to it and today new tires and brake pads showed up. Woo hoo!

One problem is... the half price chain I ordered earlier turned out to be half length too... shoulda read the description closer I guess. Oh well, I ordered another one but it won't be here until next week.

Other issues are computer related. In an amazing turn of events I was telling my wife the stuff I was going to have to do so I could upgrade the operating system on my laptop, and to my surprise she told me to just get a new one. WTF? I wasn't sure how serious she was, but she ended up ordering it for me so I guess she meant it. Anyway, it showed up today so I'm in the process of moving all my files and programs over to a new computer. I'm sure there will be issues.

I'm not sure why she was so excited about me getting a new computer. I'm thinking maybe she's having an affair and is feeling guilty? As you can imagine that's really stressing me out, I've never been through that before and I'm not sure how long I should wait before I mention I've been wanting to buy a '66 Mustang Fastback?

In other news I tried to upload some photos to my website today (I host my own photos basically) and got an error message. It seems ten years into it I'm out of disk space and will likely have to upgrade my hosting plan. Between the new computer and upgrading the website I'm pretty sure I'll be out of commission on updating for a day or three. Or maybe I'll get it worked out today. I dunno.

 

[OddJob]

Other issues are computer related. In an amazing turn of events I was telling my wife the stuff I was going to have to do so I could upgrade the operating system on my laptop, and to my surprise she told me to just get a new one. ...? I wasn't sure how serious she was, but she ended up ordering it for me so I guess she meant it. Anyway, it showed up today so I'm in the process of moving all my files and programs over to a new computer. I'm sure there will be issues.

I'm not sure why she was so excited about me getting a new computer. I'm thinking maybe she's having an affair and is feeling guilty? As you can imagine that's really stressing me out, I've never been through that before and I'm not sure how long I should wait before I mention I've been wanting to buy a '66 Mustang Fastback?

Parts of this might not be funny to some, but the way you write has me laughing this morning!

Happy Friday @DesmoDog ~!

 

[DesmoDog]

Parts of this might not be funny to some, but the way you write has me laughing this morning!

Happy Friday @DesmoDog ~!

It is all meant in fun! But yeah, I suppose it might hit close to home for some people. But I really have been thinking about looking for another Mustang.

I'm posting this on the new computer, transfering the files went amazingly smooth. I haven't worked out the web hosting yet though. I may just delete some files for now but that in some post in some forum that red X's show up instead of photos then. I should really be down working on the Racer though!

 

[DesmoDog]

Ok, so I think I got the computer issues worked out. And guess what? It was something on the host's end, not mine. There went a few hours wasted on trying to figure out what I was doing wrong.

Anywhos, where was I?

I (sort of) banged out the dents in the rear fender in prep for getting the new tire put on.

Pre bang

Post bang

There are still defects but it's better. Good enough for the condition of the rest of the bike.

So yeah, bumps banged and tire put on

I thought I had more pics but they must still be on the camera...

 

[DesmoDog]

...or maybe I just didn't take them at all? I guess I didn't take many when I couldn't upload them anyway.

I was missing one of the brake cable fittings, so I improvised.

I'd show the after shot but I never took one. You'll just have to wait until I install it. For now imagine something that lookls like a slightly larger allow version of the steel thingie. Slightly larger because it's aluminum of course.

I also cleaned up the bars in prep for putting the brake levers in place so i can hook the brakes up. But I only took a "during" photo.

I put a new front tire on too, but didn't take one of that. Imagine a shinier version of the one shown earlier. As an aside - it's ture, the Kendas available for this size rim leave a bit to be desired. They are a pain to seat correctly - I ended up using the same lube I use when installing motorcycle tires. With that they slipped right into place but I've enevr had to do that to a bicycle tire before.

The last thing I did tonight is work on the shifter. It's a true trigger and not a thumb shifter

But it's all bent up and doesn't work

A few minutes with a needle nose pliers and it works again, but still looks a little tired. Just like the rest of the bike so we're good.

I didn't take pictures of the current shape. Imagine the same trigger a little less bent and more functional.

And my chain (and some other stuff) has shipped, so hopefully this will be ready to ride early next week. Which is good, because my brain has already moved on to the '62 Racer that's waiting in the wings.

 

[DesmoDog]

According to UPS, the rest of my parts should be here on Tuesday. In prep for that I set some other parts in place to see if I was missing anything. Along the way I proved to myself that the fork is bent. No surprise with all the other stuff that's bashed out of shape on this. I noticed it when I couldn't get the bars to line up with both the axle and the crown of the fork. If I still had access to the fancy Park tools I could fix it easy enough. I'm not sure how I'll deal with it without the tools though. For now I'll leave it and press on.

It did inspire me to check the frame. With a quick and dirty set up the frame looks to be spot on, which was surprising.

The distance from the seat tube to the string is within half a millimeter from side to side. Sweet.

I haven't had any luck finding an appropriate seat so I thought I'd try to straighten the frame on the one it has. When I looked closer I found one of the springs had broken and been "fixed". Along with the bends, I'm not sure I want to deal with it. If I could find a couple springs it might be worth pulling the whole thing apart and working on it, but in the meantime I slapped on a seat from a '66 Breeze. That got me thinking - I wonder if the frame/springs from a later seat could be modded to work under the '56 seat? It looks promising, maybe I can find something with a trashed cover and use it as a donor.

Here's the brake cable fitting that used to be the aluminum rod that I showed earlier. Oooh. Ahhh. Magic! This shot also reveals another secret. I bought some replacement brake pads that were less expensive than the Kool Stop inserts. They're too long and hit the frame if the brake is allowed to open all the way. But once they are installed/adjusted the cable won't allow the caliper to spring open that far so I'll go with them.

Nothing is tightened down, I need the grips to know where the levers need to go. They're in the same shipment as the chain. Here's how it sits now.

Speaking of grips... I was thinking about "coke bottle" grips for my next bike but can't seem to find any reproductions for bicycles. Are they out there? They are easy to find for motorcycles. The only thing there is I'd have to buy two sets to get a pair for a bike since the throttle grip has a larger ID. But they're cheap enough that isn't out of the question.

I had it out of the stand and sat on it to get a feel for the size. It'll work, but the '62 and it's larger frame should be perfect. I rolled back and forth on it a little and wondered how long it has been since the bike would do that? I couldn't even roll it over to my car when I bought it! Even the paint on it looks good to me now. Oh sure, if you get close it's pretty rough, but from a few feet away it looks pretty good for a 66 year old bike that got ridden hard and put away wet.

It may not be obvious in that photo but the seat that's on there is off of a violet Breeze, so it doesn't come close to matching anything... I'm not too proud to ride it like that until I find something better though! For now it just keeps the bike from sliding out of the stand. The seat post is so small the grip is questionable.

 

[Captain Awesome]

According to UPS, the rest of my parts should be here on Tuesday. In prep for that I set some other parts in place to see if I was missing anything. Along the way I proved to myself that the fork is bent. No surprise with all the other stuff that's bashed out of shape on this. I noticed it when I couldn't get the bars to line up with both the axle and the crown of the fork. If I still had access to the fancy Park tools I could fix it easy enough. I'm not sure how I'll deal with it without the tools though. For now I'll leave it and press on.

It did inspire me to check the frame. With a quick and dirty set up the frame looks to be spot on, which was surprising.

The distance from the seat tube to the string is within half a millimeter from side to side. Sweet.

I haven't had any luck finding an appropriate seat so I thought I'd try to straighten the frame on the one it has. When I looked closer I found one of the springs had broken and been "fixed". Along with the bends, I'm not sure I want to deal with it. If I could find a couple springs it might be worth pulling the whole thing apart and working on it, but in the meantime I slapped on a seat from a '66 Breeze. That got me thinking - I wonder if the frame/springs from a later seat could be modded to work under the '56 seat? It looks promising, maybe I can find something with a trashed cover and use it as a donor.

Here's the brake cable fitting that used to be the aluminum rod that I showed earlier. Oooh. Ahhh. Magic! This shot also reveals another secret. I bought some replacement brake pads that were less expensive than the Kool Stop inserts. They're too long and hit the frame if the brake is allowed to open all the way. But once they are installed/adjusted the cable won't allow the caliper to spring open that far so I'll go with them.

Nothing is tightened down, I need the grips to know where the levers need to go. They're in the same shipment as the chain. Here's how it sits now.

Speaking of grips... I was thinking about "coke bottle" grips for my next bike but can't seem to find any reproductions for bicycles. Are they out there? They are easy to find for motorcycles. The only thing there is I'd have to buy two sets to get a pair for a bike since the throttle grip has a larger ID. But they're cheap enough that isn't out of the question.

I had it out of the stand and sat on it to get a feel for the size. It'll work, but the '62 and it's larger frame should be perfect. I rolled back and forth on it a little and wondered how long it has been since the bike would do that? I couldn't even roll it over to my car when I bought it! Even the paint on it looks good to me now. Oh sure, if you get close it's pretty rough, but from a few feet away it looks pretty good for a 66 year old bike that got ridden hard and put away wet.

It may not be obvious in that photo but the seat that's on there is off of a violet Breeze, so it doesn't come close to matching anything... I'm not too proud to ride it like that until I find something better though! For now it just keeps the bike from sliding out of the stand. The seat post is so small the grip is questionable.

Coke bottle grips? You need to speak to the source @ifitsfreeitsforme

 

[ifitsfreeitsforme]

Coke bottle grips? You need to speak to the source @ifitsfreeitsforme

thank you CA. I can hook you up with Coke Bottle grips Desmo. IM me if interested.

 

[DesmoDog]

Thanks for the grip info, when I get working on that bike I'll be a customer I'm sure!

The chain and grips for this one showed up today, so I put the this thing together and took it for it's first ride in who knows how long.

Some of it cleaned up better than I thought it would, some of it didn't clean up at all... but it rides pretty dang nice for a bike that wouldn't roll when I got it. I now have zero plans for repainting it, this is what it's going to look like (except for the seat) for as long as I own it. It's a survivor, that's cool with me.

The shift cable needs to be adjusted, it found neutral towards the end of my short ride. That wasn't unexpected, the cable seemed loose to start with but all the adjustment was gone already. As I was putting it away I realized I can move the cable anchor near the headset to get more adjustment out of it so that should be an easy fix.

I just volunteered at a local bike repair co-op so maybe they'll have the tools I'll need to put the fork back into alignment? We'll see. If I'm just riding along it's fine, but gets annoying when I look down at it. Everything is just a little off...

But it's pretty much done. I'll adjust the shifting and maybe tweak the trigger position but other than that all it needs is a seat that doesn't clash with what's left of the paint and it'll be good to go. Well, except for the fork that is.

I'll probably add some before/after pictures at some point but I have other things i'm supposed to be doing rigt now, so that will have wait.

 

[OddJob]

Turned out well! Has a great 'vintage clean' and balanced look to it. Enjoy the ride!

 

[Lowe Beau]

Looks awesome. (I love Racers)

 

[LACABikeGuy.55]

My original plan was to replace the Schwinn S6 (or S5 or whatever they are) rims with some "normal" 26" rims. In fact I had one just like I wanted to use. So I held it up to the bike for a reality check. What? Ok, I knew that the Schwinn 26" rim back in the day was bigger than the typical 26" rim. But I didn't realize it was THAT much bigger. I thought it was a slight difference, just enough that the tires wouldn't interchange.

Here's a 26" rim inside the Schwinn 26" rim. EDIT: Nevermind, this is a mountain bike 26" rim vs the Schwinn rim. Not a 590 vs 597 rim. So many sizes...

Nope. Abandon that idea. New plan is to use the rims off the Breeze that I stole the rear hub off of for my Typhoon. Plans subject to change without notice.

Turns out the headset wasn't as bad as I thought. The real problem was the lower cup fell out of the frame when I pulled the fork. I'm not sure what's up with that, didn't bother checking yet.

The kickstand was well on it's way to losing it's pin.

And upon further investigation, I did see evidence there was a weld-on kickstand at one point. Not much evidence but that would help explain why it fell off! The bolt on part did worse damage to the frame than losing the welds on the original part.

I am now officially looking for a kickstand boss off an old Schwinn. I have a feeling I'm going to end up buying yet another donor bike before this is over, maybe I'll harvest it from that.

The crank was just as dry as the headset. I'm guessing the hubs look about the same but haven't torn into them yet.

I hadn't planned on using the seat anyway but it's trash too. Along with the rock hard "padding", the base is all messed up.

The seat post clamps were a lot nicer back then than the later stamped versions. Someone mentioned that on my Typhoon thread and I didn't realize they were this different. I replaced the one on the Typhoon. This one easily makes the cut and will stay.

When you're done stripping it down you end up with a 7.5ish lb frame.

And now the fun starts. The paint is just a little too far gone for the "patina" look I'm afraid - it's worse in person. Which sucks cuz the graphics are worth saving. I won't be painting it for this build though. I guess that means I have to start cleaning it up.

The stem and bars have flaking chrome on them which is an instant disqualification for me. Too many cuts from flaking chrome when I worked as a mechanic. Screw paper cuts, chrome is worse. No major loss though. The Racer was aimed towards kids so the bars are smaller than on, say, a Breeze. And the stem was ugly anyway. I may just use the Breeze parts there too, but I'd kinda like an alloy stem and funkier bars... we'll see. I'm still formulating a plan for yet another bike I don't own yet and don't want to commit parts to this before I figure out that!

I’ve never seen that seat clamp. Very cool

 

[JA331]

Nice work. Looks sweet!