Monark Americana cruiser.

[horsefarmer]

My late brother picked this bike up at Ann Arbor swap 3 years ago, shortly before he passed. I don't think he ever touched it after bringing it home.
After replacing a tube and a rim strip and grease and adjust front hub it rode smoothly down the driveway. I extended the seat post and am swapping the stem so I can ride this bad boy!

The seat was also from his stash of bike parts. It's newer, but looks cool.

It was stuck but pb blaster got it out ok. Then a djg through tne horde found this suitable stem, right size and easily 3" taller. Uh oh it is rusted tight.

Pb blaster got that freed as well.

 

[horsefarmer]

Stem installed and test ride went ok. My goodness this rig is tall geared in high (direct drive). My guesstimation is 52t chainring and 20t on the rear hub. in low I think there is a 30% gear reduction and it's much easier to pedal.

Here is a pic of the shift cable setup. Too bad they repainted the chainguard and lost the graphics.

Zephyr flyer firstline - original tire?

Sears Allstate - replacement tire? Both middleweights.



7670 - 4147045 serial number.

 

[horsefarmer]

52t chainring and 19t cog on hub. According to the gear calculator, First (low gear) = 48 gear inches with a .68 to 1 reduction.
Second (high gear) = 71 gear inches and is direct drive.
Compared to a 1955 Schwinn Tiger SA 3 speed with SA type AW 3 speed hub.
The ratios are 0.75, 1.0, and 1.33 on a standard "wide-range" Sturmey hub. Typical sprocket selections yielded about 50, 66, and 88 gear inches.

Number on frame - 7670-4147045

Trying to determine the year this bike was built.
Read the following links...
https://thecabe.com/forum/threads/monark-serial-number-help-what-year-is-it.75714/
https://ratrodbikes.com/forum/threads/monark-silver-king-identification-and-questions.99852/
https://ratrodbikes.com/forum/threads/monark-silver-king-serial-number-id.36122/

From my "fresh finds" thread...
https://ratrodbikes.com/forum/threads/horsefarmers-fresh-finds.109737/page-4#post-1226577
@RustyGold said,"That's probably a rare Monark. Everybody started building cantilever frames in ~'57 because Schwinn's patent ran out... Monark was done by '58. It looks like that has a Monark style mono BB to chain stay junction, so it isn't a latter rebadged Huffy.

A last year Monark with a whole new frame design... very cool!"

Somewhere in all this I read the Silver King name was revived in 1955 for a new middleweight line. Also Huffy gobbled 'em up by late 1957.
also the first 4 numbers are the model number followed by a serial number.
So model 7670
Middleweight
Cantilever frame
Bendix manual 2 speed hub
Wippermann front caliper brake
Any more info from the old bike Gurus would be appreciated!
Cross posted to Bike I.D. & valuation questions.

​

 

[horsefarmer]

Found this rack in my Brothers stash of parts. Looks right at home just setting on there. Maybe was on the bike when he got it?

 

[Tallbikeman]

Really nice 3 speed middleweight bicycle with a front brake. I think I read somewhere that the general idea about gearing was to gear them high so the pedals turned slow at a reasonable speed. This in turn made people think that the bike was easy to pedal even though the bicycle was hard to start and you walked it up hills. I can go 10-14mph most days. I regear my IGH 3speeds so that I'm spinning out at about 14mph in 3rd gear. This gives me a lovely low 1st gear for hills and a great 2nd gear for starting out at stop lights. Because I'm older and my power output is down from days of old I don't worry about the prohibition about under gearing a 3 speed IGH. Haven't broken one yet.

 

[horsefarmer]

The biggest problems the bike has now are the hard old tires, I have a set of newer used tires to try.
The other thing is both rims are out of round enough to cause bouncing at speed! I'm not the handiest with a spoke wrench but I've got to try something.
Probably would be awesome to swap some pretty chrome or alloy rims as these are kinda ugly cadmium platted steel.

 

[horsefarmer]

Oh man, spent some time on this front wheel but seems I can't get get it to run true. Both front and rear rims are similar. Not an expert on wheel truing but studied some Youtube videos. One said to loosen all spokes 2 turns to let the rim regain shape without tension then re adjust and tighten them. Still has over 1/16" of radial run out.
66 year old bike who knows what it has been thru but the hoops look pretty cheapo (similar to some off a 1980'S Huffy). Maybe upgrade with Mt. bike parts?

 

[Karate Chicken Industries]

Swap them out for some 80's single wall aluminum MTB rims.

 

[horsefarmer]

Since both hoops are bad I decided to sacrifice a CMC 5 speed rear wheel and then I can use the matching front wheel.

I decided to use these cause chrome is awesome and though heavy steel they are ridgid and run true.
Wish me luck never built a wheel before.....

 

[horsefarmer]

Got all the spokes swapped over. 3 seem sketchy, gonna see if I have any spares that will interchange. Then to set tension on 'em all.

 

[horsefarmer]

And came out pretty good! I have not installed it yet, but runs much truer than the old rim. Decided to try these used French made Avocet tires. They are 26 x 1.5" size but can run 60 psi. I'm thinking the smaller dia may help with the super tall gearing in high gear!

 

[horsefarmer]

Fully operational. I took it up one of the steeper hills and it did ok in low.

I think the tires & wheels look good.

I think this wheelset came from a Ross Central Park bike. Before flipping it I swapped out the wheels.

 

[Couch tater]

Great looking bike!

 

[horsefarmer]

Thanks! Getting easy rolling & and true wheels on it really transformed it. An aded benefit of these rims is the bead area or shoulder of the rim is deeper to retain the tire better - the old rims let the tire bead pop out!