60 roadmaster

[roadmaster]

now that i finally got my camera and a good day to take some picts of what ive done with my 60 roadmaster. came with the stem tensioner seatpost but i replaced it with a conventional bolt and longer post. hope you enjoy the picts i've been meaning to post for longer than i care to admit.

how it looks now and picts by my wife.

heres how it looked the last time i posted it.

thanks to brentwood for the fenders and rear carrier. :mrgreen:

 

[Wildcat]

Looks good. I like the laid back angles of that frame.

I've got the same frame I'm planning to build, forks are different. Does the serial number give the year? If not, how did you date yours?

 

[roadmaster]

my ser# starts with an H, if that helps. when i first got it, in terrible tweekerized condition, i didn't even know what it was. after extensive reasearch and comparison, i figured it around a 59 to 62, as i think the swirl chainring was b4 the stars or at leat phased out by 62', the year i believe amf switched from their stemstyle wedgebolt seatpost (like this one had when i got it, but i converted it with a longer post and conventional clamp and bolt) to the conventional bolt style. my chainguard if off what i think is a cwc cike built in the later 40's or early 50's. handlebars off a 93' murray westport, wheels an 86' murray monterey and custom eurostyle rearmount reflector. i love how this bike rides and dig it when i see other amf roadmasters posted. i just wish dating the ser# wasnt one of the worlds unsolved mysteries.

 

[Wildcat]

I'll get my serial number and post it, and we'll see if it looks like there was a sequence. Mine has the clampless seatpost and came with a star sprocket with red and green reflectors. I thought the bike was gone and traded away the sprocket, then the frame turned up! I've got another star sprocket, 44 tooth off a girl's 24" bike, and another one coming soon. So I'm thinking 1962 or when ever the star sprocket was first used.

Is the white trim original?

 

[roadmaster]

yeah, the white is the original scheme, but in the original picture i wasnt sure about the fork and did it up in white, but later saw pictures in which the fork was black so thats what it ended up being. i originally thought that the stars sprocket began in late 61 or 62, but later someone else said they were around late 50's, which could be the case. my sprocket is a 48tooth and i seen that style through the 50's and not too far into the 60's. whatever year they are, these bikes ride great and i love the angles. i think my rear carrier is off a 62' or later girls roadmaster, along with the fenders.

 

[Wildcat]

My serial number is on the right dropout, P 25444?. Mine was a 2 dollar thrift store find, had a yellow band s speed with S2 rim is why I bought it, and under a 1/4" of dirt was the star sprocket, all I wanted was the 2 speed, so it sat. I think yours is older, your fork crown has a full chrome cap, my fork crown is more like the Roadmaster that was posted the other day

Were these made by Cleveland Welding?

 

[roadmaster]

yeah, i believe the frames are of cwc design, by the mid to later 50's (56' i think) these were made by AMF (american manufacturing foundery) in their arkansas factory. amf was known to sometimes spec their bike with whatever parts were laying around making it somewhat confusing. my ser# is H075356 on the left rear dropout.

 

[Wildcat]

I did some research on the web and found a couple writeups on the Roadmaster bikes. The factory moved from Cleveland to Arkansas in 1956 to get around the labor unions. Then they moved to Illinois in 1962. The quality of the bikes went downhill after the last move to Illinois.
I also looked at every Roadmaster ad and poster I could find. Hundreds of them. I was trying to discern the years they used a particular sprocket, but they must have used the star sprocket at the same time as the later one, many ads showed both for the same year. The earliest I saw a star sprocket was 1959, but I never found a 57 or 58 ad.