Figured it was time to do a little building tonight after work...
I started here with one of the famous Chuckz Frames:
It's the INB model. (Industrial News Boy for those in the dark, like me..) Been used somewhere in Houston industry, got a wee bit of surface rust but it's straight and solid as can be.. I don't really like the chainguard mounts but I do have a saw and grinder..) Lots of cool decals and patina like crazy...(That's rust and scrapes for those in the dark, like me..lol)
I've been sourcing free parts for it her and there out of my stash of junk bike parts I've accumulated this summer.. I was in for a surprise when I went to install may favorite set of mountain bike bars and stem... What's this?? The fork isn't big enough?? OOPS! After a day or two of thinking, I remembered I had bought a set of Schwinn drop bars to get the brake levers from it for my buddy's Trek.. (Never did install them, he ended up with a single speed rat I put together and now the Trek is up for sale..)and it looked like they had the smaller diameter stem on them. I was after a substantial rise, but no luck with the Schwinn stem.. (22.x mmm vs 21.1mm on the diameter, for those who didn't know, like me..)
So.....I thought I'd use a set of BMX style bars to get the same effect... I'll let you guys guess what bike these blue beauties came off...and they actually fit the nice solid although short Schwinn stem.
On to the seat....I figured, just pop in a nice seat from my collection of seats with seatposts already mounted....What's this??? The seat tube isn't big enough?????Darn... Off to RRB to research some more...A few hours later,between RRB and the online Worksman parts list, I figured out that they use a 7/8 seatpost, and I didn't have any. Hmmm.. Do I have a solid piece of 7/8 rod, since it seemed everyone was bending their INB seatposts.. Looked in the scrap pile, looked in my truck box, and after another look down cellar I found a piece of 7/8 od tubing ....err ummm ...actually galvanized water pipe. and it fit!! Even jammed it almost all the way to the bottom bracket and took out a small ding in the seat tube. Next, a post clamp..
I thought maybe I'd have trouble finding the right size clamp for the seatpost, after all I didn't have any 7/8 stuff anywhere. I looked in my pile of leftover junk from DJ's Dilemma, and found this beauty.. Add a little shim behind it, replace the fixed bolt with a quick release and I have a solid seat!! (By the way it is actually the top inch of seatpost tube from a Spiderman bike...)
Now to find wheels and tires.. I'd already mocked it up in the attic (only special bikes get to stay in the attic) and decided a whitewall cruiser tire was no good and I wanted knarly tires instead. I also wanted to go for alloy rims and save a little weight, always a good thing if you can do it without sacrificing strength.. For the front, a Schwinn Sidewinder I had parted yielded its QR alloy rim on a nice large hub. It might donate its rear rim as well later, but I did grab the rear tire. I pulled the cruiser tire off the CB rim and discovered this...
Now that's rat rod style to an extreme I don't want to use.. so I tossed the rim strip.
While I had the tire off, I mounted the wheel in the Worksman frame and used my half penny truing gauge to get the wheel a little less wobbly.. The wheel had been curbed hard at one point and the rim was a bit ....trashed. After a little adjustable wrench body work to the worst of the damage and a few spokes got tightened..it is within 1/8 inch either way so I left it. It's gonna get replaced in the future anyway. Here's the high dollar paper clip truing gauge in action:
You can't quite see the rat style brake arm strap (More plumbing stuff) that works for now. Don't look too close at that chain, I didn't...
I wanted a small front sprocket, and a one piece crank would be the easy and cheap way out...but the only one piecers I had were from kids bikes and my Wee Ride trail a bike. The Wee Ride had the longest crank arms but they still are too short. I'll have to search the other storage pile and find a larger one later, but I needed something to pedal so this was it. At least the sprocket wasn't too awful big.
Here's the end result after a couple of hours digging around and assembling:
and a better shot from the side:
About that chain.. I thought I had pulled the chain off the Firestone Super cruiser for this bike... it had the chain with the bright side plates and black rollers and inner plates, right? It was cool that the chain was exactly the right length too, and all I had to do was push in the pin with my chain breaker (Park chain breaker by the way, only way to fly for me.) and it was just the right length and well within adjustment range. I had the bike all together on its back and did the standard spin the pedals thing -- what's this?? The chain doesn't fit?? It makes funny noises and doesn't want to come off the front sprocket on its way to the back???? Dang. it wasn't the Super Cruiser chain after all. Turns out it was off the Sidewinder. You know, a multispeed chain just doesn't work too well on a single speed coaster brake bike. For now it stays, but tomorrow I find the correct width chain.
Well, it's time to pump the tires up harder and go for a test drive in the parking lot... I can already tell the gearing is set up for tremendously high speeds so I'll have to be careful and not go over the wall. I'll report back later, if I survive.
I started here with one of the famous Chuckz Frames:
It's the INB model. (Industrial News Boy for those in the dark, like me..) Been used somewhere in Houston industry, got a wee bit of surface rust but it's straight and solid as can be.. I don't really like the chainguard mounts but I do have a saw and grinder..) Lots of cool decals and patina like crazy...(That's rust and scrapes for those in the dark, like me..lol)
I've been sourcing free parts for it her and there out of my stash of junk bike parts I've accumulated this summer.. I was in for a surprise when I went to install may favorite set of mountain bike bars and stem... What's this?? The fork isn't big enough?? OOPS! After a day or two of thinking, I remembered I had bought a set of Schwinn drop bars to get the brake levers from it for my buddy's Trek.. (Never did install them, he ended up with a single speed rat I put together and now the Trek is up for sale..)and it looked like they had the smaller diameter stem on them. I was after a substantial rise, but no luck with the Schwinn stem.. (22.x mmm vs 21.1mm on the diameter, for those who didn't know, like me..)
So.....I thought I'd use a set of BMX style bars to get the same effect... I'll let you guys guess what bike these blue beauties came off...and they actually fit the nice solid although short Schwinn stem.
On to the seat....I figured, just pop in a nice seat from my collection of seats with seatposts already mounted....What's this??? The seat tube isn't big enough?????Darn... Off to RRB to research some more...A few hours later,between RRB and the online Worksman parts list, I figured out that they use a 7/8 seatpost, and I didn't have any. Hmmm.. Do I have a solid piece of 7/8 rod, since it seemed everyone was bending their INB seatposts.. Looked in the scrap pile, looked in my truck box, and after another look down cellar I found a piece of 7/8 od tubing ....err ummm ...actually galvanized water pipe. and it fit!! Even jammed it almost all the way to the bottom bracket and took out a small ding in the seat tube. Next, a post clamp..
I thought maybe I'd have trouble finding the right size clamp for the seatpost, after all I didn't have any 7/8 stuff anywhere. I looked in my pile of leftover junk from DJ's Dilemma, and found this beauty.. Add a little shim behind it, replace the fixed bolt with a quick release and I have a solid seat!! (By the way it is actually the top inch of seatpost tube from a Spiderman bike...)
Now to find wheels and tires.. I'd already mocked it up in the attic (only special bikes get to stay in the attic) and decided a whitewall cruiser tire was no good and I wanted knarly tires instead. I also wanted to go for alloy rims and save a little weight, always a good thing if you can do it without sacrificing strength.. For the front, a Schwinn Sidewinder I had parted yielded its QR alloy rim on a nice large hub. It might donate its rear rim as well later, but I did grab the rear tire. I pulled the cruiser tire off the CB rim and discovered this...
Now that's rat rod style to an extreme I don't want to use.. so I tossed the rim strip.
While I had the tire off, I mounted the wheel in the Worksman frame and used my half penny truing gauge to get the wheel a little less wobbly.. The wheel had been curbed hard at one point and the rim was a bit ....trashed. After a little adjustable wrench body work to the worst of the damage and a few spokes got tightened..it is within 1/8 inch either way so I left it. It's gonna get replaced in the future anyway. Here's the high dollar paper clip truing gauge in action:
You can't quite see the rat style brake arm strap (More plumbing stuff) that works for now. Don't look too close at that chain, I didn't...
I wanted a small front sprocket, and a one piece crank would be the easy and cheap way out...but the only one piecers I had were from kids bikes and my Wee Ride trail a bike. The Wee Ride had the longest crank arms but they still are too short. I'll have to search the other storage pile and find a larger one later, but I needed something to pedal so this was it. At least the sprocket wasn't too awful big.
Here's the end result after a couple of hours digging around and assembling:
and a better shot from the side:
About that chain.. I thought I had pulled the chain off the Firestone Super cruiser for this bike... it had the chain with the bright side plates and black rollers and inner plates, right? It was cool that the chain was exactly the right length too, and all I had to do was push in the pin with my chain breaker (Park chain breaker by the way, only way to fly for me.) and it was just the right length and well within adjustment range. I had the bike all together on its back and did the standard spin the pedals thing -- what's this?? The chain doesn't fit?? It makes funny noises and doesn't want to come off the front sprocket on its way to the back???? Dang. it wasn't the Super Cruiser chain after all. Turns out it was off the Sidewinder. You know, a multispeed chain just doesn't work too well on a single speed coaster brake bike. For now it stays, but tomorrow I find the correct width chain.
Well, it's time to pump the tires up harder and go for a test drive in the parking lot... I can already tell the gearing is set up for tremendously high speeds so I'll have to be careful and not go over the wall. I'll report back later, if I survive.
