I Think I Found My New "Thing"

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I'm totally new to Rat Rod Bikes. I do a ton of mountain biking here in Colorado and I also enjoy road biking. I hate riding my bikes to the store or around the neighborhood when I have to end up parking them somewhere because I don't want my expensive rigs to get stolen.

I have always admired the fixie and ss riders around town and thought I would start to look for something cool to ride around the hood. During my search I kept running across a lot of cool cruisers, townies and rat rods. There's a guy out here in Golden, CO that has a site called http://www.luxlow.com who has some sweet "Patina Restores" and a lot of great bikes. I had never thought of doing a rough restore that kept the old look, but I was hooked.

It dawned on me that my Dad had a really cool Hiawatha that he had gotten in the early 50's as a kid and I had told him to never sell that bike because I would want it some day. Well, that day came, so I loaded up the fam into the Swagger Wagon (aka Toyota Sienna) and drove out to the farm in Nebraska. After a couple of days of helping out with the harvest by driving tractor and grain truck I had earned my right to claim the Hiawatha St Croix as my own. Now I'm on a mission to get this thing restored. I will probably have LuxLow handle this one for me, but I envision trying to tackle something on my own some day.

Check out my pics. I have some more and will upload in a project thread at some point.

I'd love to hear any feedback, advice, do's/dont's or anything that could help me make my first Rat Rod project a success. I'm not sure how to do a good cleaning to get the paint to shine out a bit and maybe remove a bit of the rust.

6E48A102-orig.jpg


80FF71E3-orig.jpg


I'm not sure what the part is called, but I need the "strut" that goes from the head-tube area down to the hub. They are broke off and missing from my bike. The bike rack was also broke and jerry rigged in place with a couple of makeshift straps. So if anyone has leads on either of these parts, I'd be grateful.
 
Great Bike! Welcome to RRB 8) :mrgreen:
 
Welcome! Nice bike you have there. I'd clean and grease all the bearings and leave it as is.
 
Thanks for the advice. It really doesn't need a ton of work. The spokes are loose and a couple are broke.
I am going through the forum to pick up some cleaning tips.
 
Heres the Hiawatha with a patina restore. I'll get some more photos eventually. Maybe enter in the next phot contest.

e2c89d3d.jpg
 
Close to grease and ride, but it's got some new stuff. Pedals, Seat, Found the correct struts that were broken off mine, New Tires, grips, chain, chain ring (mine was bent slightly found used one) and reflector on fender. It's pretty cool to ride around, just have to stay away from hills. It's got one really big gear.
 
i've said it before and i'll say it again...
stock sucks, and restoring is boring.
bikes are supposed to be fun.
welcome aboard
 
Cool bike.
I was hoping to see that you found an old VW "Thing".
 
kingfish254 said:
Cool bike.
I was hoping to see that you found an old VW "Thing".
you was hoping for a pedal powered thing :lol: come on you can tell us.. there is a good chance your building one
as we speak just in case they scrap the rules for the build off
 
Henry morgan said:
kingfish254 said:
Cool bike.
I was hoping to see that you found an old VW "Thing".
you was hoping for a pedal powered thing :lol: come on you can tell us.. there is a good chance your building one
as we speak just in case they scrap the rules for the build off

As slow as my Thing was, it might as well have been pedal powered. :p
 

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