As was mentioned at the start, the banana seat and sissy bar on the bike when I bought it were from a girls bike, likely a 16" model. The seat is shorter and so was the sissy, in it's maxed out point as it sits.
Also, if you look closely, the sissy was not clamped on to the frame as per the stingrays, it was bolted through a clamp. My sissy bar, billed as an eary '70s Schwinn Stingray seat rail on ebay, is the smooth 'clamp on' style.
The original clamps on ebay are almost as much as the seat rail itself, so I did some, oh, what do you call it again?? RAT RODDING! Yeah, that's it!
I needed a spacer inside the clamp because the girls rail was also a larger O.D. than this Schwinn one. So I found a piece at the Ace Hardware down the street that fit the I.D. of the clamp and the O.D. of the 'new' seat rail.
I then drilled a smaller hole through the spacer, big enough for my bolt but tight so that it wouldn't 'slop around'. How's that for a technical term?
And I drilled a hole of the same size on the Schwinn seat rail at my prescribed mounting height.
It's bright and sunny and warm out today, these next two days could be our last gasp. I also pulled the BB apart and the head set and clean and lubed all parts. These were both thankfully in good shape when I got the bike. They are in even better shape now! Funny how Schwinn put their stamp on everything...
If you look close, it's even stamped 'SCHWINN' on the bearing cage!
Stay posted.....we're getting REAL close now!