Been super busy lately, but I've been squeezing progress in wherever I can. I'm not the best at documenting while I go, but hopefully this will suffice as an update.
Lets start with the fork. Now that I have the three parts figured out, it was time to assemble. I replaced the headset which turned out to be a lower profile (good thing) and gave me a little more bite with the top lock nut. Since I'm not using it as a stock configuration, I had to figure out what to do about the bolts that hold the three pieces together. Found some 8" fasteners, did some measuring and some dremmel cutting, and pretty soon I had new fasteners approximately 7.5" long.
Found some nice acorn nuts to top them off. The other problem the non-stock fork created was disguising those fasteners. The original fork had round chrome tubing that the fasteners went inside of. Since the gap was longer now, I needed longer tubing. After some head-scratching I found the perfect solution: the scraps from my sissy bar that I cut off. It's chrome and even the right diameter! Here's the fork now:
The fork also presented a challenge with the front fender. I knew I wanted to use a 16" to go with the wheel, but I had to decide if I wanted to direct mount it to the fork, or use the brace. There was too much distance to do both. I ended up using the brace, and then using a long fastener to thread up into the threaded hole inside the steer tube of the fork. This left a lot of bolt exposed so I covered it with a piece of rubber fuel line. Fit like a glove and gave the fastener some tension so it (hopefully) won't come loose.
Moving on to the crank, chainring, and pedals. Nothing too exciting—I decided to keep the original crank and chainring (so I wouldn't have more parts to get rid of). They were in great shape and looked at home after a good cleaning. Installed them along with a new bottom bracket I had laying around. I originally bought a set of repop bow pedals, but didn't care for the reflectors. Then I came across a set of original Schwinn bows and snapped those up. Took the soda blaster and some tin foil to the "patina" and they shined right up. I originally thought I could take them apart and give the bearings some attention, but they just aren't meant to be disassembled (in other words I stopped before I really screwed them up). Once everything was clean I shot some white lithium grease down inside the spindle. Spin like buttah!
I had to make some changes to my rear end set up. I wanted to use a 20x3.0 tire on the back, but it just wasn't working with a fender and I would have needed to extend the dropout to get good chain tension. I finally went back to my 20x2.4 and everything started falling into place. The bike didn't come with a rear fender, but I picked one up at a local swap a while back.
It wasn't the right kind, but nothing a little dremeling couldn't take care of. The fender didn't have the same arc as the wheel in the frame so I picked a good spot and chopped it down.
Added a couple of holes for the fasteners and used some rivet head screws to fill the holes where the fender brace was. It came out exactly as I wanted it to.
Got the back wheel put in and installed the chain only to find out it rubbed the fender. By like 2mm. I could have flipped the chainring and probably would have gained the clearance I needed, but I didn't feel like taking a fully greased bottom bracket apart again so I marked where the chain was rubbing and added a tiny crimp with some vice grips. Worked like a charm! You can also see how well the crank, chainring, and pedals cleaned up.
As I mentioned earlier I really wanted to build something that looked like it could have been a stock bike. In order to achieve that I needed to pay attention to the details, and one of those details was decals. I reached out to Bruce Crawford about doing a custom set of decals for this bike. He already had the artwork for Western Flyer Buzz Bikes, but I asked him to use black instead of the original blue. I also created a custom chainguard decal using his template. He sent me a comp:
Everything in grey is actually chrome. Here's the cleaned up chainguard prior to the decal application:
The decals went on really well and definitely added a nice touch. Added the headlight I picked up from eBay and the NOS Western Flyer grips from Joe (yeshoney) and here she sits.
Full disclosure I had the seat and sissy bar installed, but I cut the sissy bar WAY too short. Ordered another today and hope to finish this one up later this week!
Lets start with the fork. Now that I have the three parts figured out, it was time to assemble. I replaced the headset which turned out to be a lower profile (good thing) and gave me a little more bite with the top lock nut. Since I'm not using it as a stock configuration, I had to figure out what to do about the bolts that hold the three pieces together. Found some 8" fasteners, did some measuring and some dremmel cutting, and pretty soon I had new fasteners approximately 7.5" long.
Found some nice acorn nuts to top them off. The other problem the non-stock fork created was disguising those fasteners. The original fork had round chrome tubing that the fasteners went inside of. Since the gap was longer now, I needed longer tubing. After some head-scratching I found the perfect solution: the scraps from my sissy bar that I cut off. It's chrome and even the right diameter! Here's the fork now:
The fork also presented a challenge with the front fender. I knew I wanted to use a 16" to go with the wheel, but I had to decide if I wanted to direct mount it to the fork, or use the brace. There was too much distance to do both. I ended up using the brace, and then using a long fastener to thread up into the threaded hole inside the steer tube of the fork. This left a lot of bolt exposed so I covered it with a piece of rubber fuel line. Fit like a glove and gave the fastener some tension so it (hopefully) won't come loose.
Moving on to the crank, chainring, and pedals. Nothing too exciting—I decided to keep the original crank and chainring (so I wouldn't have more parts to get rid of). They were in great shape and looked at home after a good cleaning. Installed them along with a new bottom bracket I had laying around. I originally bought a set of repop bow pedals, but didn't care for the reflectors. Then I came across a set of original Schwinn bows and snapped those up. Took the soda blaster and some tin foil to the "patina" and they shined right up. I originally thought I could take them apart and give the bearings some attention, but they just aren't meant to be disassembled (in other words I stopped before I really screwed them up). Once everything was clean I shot some white lithium grease down inside the spindle. Spin like buttah!
I had to make some changes to my rear end set up. I wanted to use a 20x3.0 tire on the back, but it just wasn't working with a fender and I would have needed to extend the dropout to get good chain tension. I finally went back to my 20x2.4 and everything started falling into place. The bike didn't come with a rear fender, but I picked one up at a local swap a while back.
It wasn't the right kind, but nothing a little dremeling couldn't take care of. The fender didn't have the same arc as the wheel in the frame so I picked a good spot and chopped it down.
Added a couple of holes for the fasteners and used some rivet head screws to fill the holes where the fender brace was. It came out exactly as I wanted it to.
Got the back wheel put in and installed the chain only to find out it rubbed the fender. By like 2mm. I could have flipped the chainring and probably would have gained the clearance I needed, but I didn't feel like taking a fully greased bottom bracket apart again so I marked where the chain was rubbing and added a tiny crimp with some vice grips. Worked like a charm! You can also see how well the crank, chainring, and pedals cleaned up.
As I mentioned earlier I really wanted to build something that looked like it could have been a stock bike. In order to achieve that I needed to pay attention to the details, and one of those details was decals. I reached out to Bruce Crawford about doing a custom set of decals for this bike. He already had the artwork for Western Flyer Buzz Bikes, but I asked him to use black instead of the original blue. I also created a custom chainguard decal using his template. He sent me a comp:
Everything in grey is actually chrome. Here's the cleaned up chainguard prior to the decal application:
The decals went on really well and definitely added a nice touch. Added the headlight I picked up from eBay and the NOS Western Flyer grips from Joe (yeshoney) and here she sits.
Full disclosure I had the seat and sissy bar installed, but I cut the sissy bar WAY too short. Ordered another today and hope to finish this one up later this week!
