Swingrat

[Wildcat]

Welding is set for this weekend. in the meantime I went to work on the dropout extensions. This frame was made for 20" so It needed a couple inches of room. I had thought of getting some metal and cutting it to fit, but I want to use up as much old stuff as I can. I tried the flanges I have for a home made springer and they gave enough clearance. Then I was going to try to make braces going up to the fork, but once I get everything aligned, they will get welded in place, no need for anything else but to trim up the drops so they look decent.
I can also reverse the forks to give an extra inch and a half to the bike. I just noticed I might be able to bolt the forks to the top of the flange.

So the front and rear are just about ready.

 

[Wildcat]

It looks like this will work, and maybe not need welding.

 

[Wildcat]

I laid it out again to check the angles and height of the seat. The rake on the forks looks too much but I watched a vid of a lowrider swing bike with a ton more rake and the guy was riding it. It can be adjusted easily once I ride it.
I noticed my chain might contact a bolt near the top of the cog. I can change the flange to clear that.

 

[ingola]

I looked it over while waiting for a welder. It's going to be the neighborhood welder, as I can't find any Mig or Tig welders here. Some said yes they do, but when I asked what Tig welding was, they didn't know. They only had welding rods. I'll just see how well I can clean up the welds.

I'm trying to see problems before it's too late and I again add to the metal scrap pile. I thought about the 10mm pin that will lock the rear portion so it won't swing. I remembered the se

at stem and how long the bolt is. There is just enough room at the lower part of the head tube to drill the 10mm hole (where the blue dot is) without interfering with the seat stem, even when it's all the way down. The lip of the bearing cap won't be a problem either. I don't see any other problems yet.

View attachment 231584


While I was doing this, the wife called and said she found an old frame and bought it! Great! I again envisioned an old flat bar Schwinn or even an 80's Murray, but what showed up was another Chinese city bike. The third in a row, but the last two provided the head tubes for the Swingrat. This one had no wheels but she paid 1100 pesos for it (about 20 dollars). That's about 18 dollars too much. She said it came with some new parts as to why they wanted twice as much this time. I asked where the new parts were. "They're already on the bike!"
I was about to complain but I want her to get any frame she comes across. Nothing over 50 bucks though unless it's really nice or I can see it first. She might leave a good frame thinking they were asking too much. So I remarked how nice this frame was, and 26" to boot!
View attachment 231587

That's sweet your wife brought you a bike my wife brought me a dumpster true story

 

[ingola]

There it is beating around the bush not her thing .came home from work and there it was.

 

[Wildcat]

View attachment 231763
There it is beating around the bush not her thing .came home from work and there it was.

A dumpster with trash inside?

 

[ingola]

A dumpster with trash inside?

Nope she put the trash there and is looking at my stuff now

 

[ingola]

We had a hoarder tenent that's the second one well pull out

 

[Wildcat]

We rented for years while I was in the military. Most of my neighbors had it in for the landlord and trashed their homes. Makes no sense whatsoever. It's tough to rent a decent place to people you don't know.
Hoarders leave tons of stuff. The only good thing would be a bag of forgotten money, or better yet, a bike!

 

[Wildcat]

I tried several different ways of configuring the rear and nothing worked, there was always interference with the chain. The fork is the problem, only 100 mm wide. I tried to spread open the forks to 120 mm, but it just sprung right back.

I don't have any way of doing it, so I'll see if the guys at the bike shop can possibly do it. I need to have a wheel trued so a trip to the shop is in order.

 

[Wildcat]

The guy at the shop went right to work on the fork. I thought they might use a press or clamp of some kind. He stood on one side and pulled up on the other, and then we measured it, 120mm exactly!
So, that's taken care of; it fits like a glove.

I tried several ways of doing the dropouts with those flanges but gave up. I'm going to get some plate and cut it up with my new grinder and make it look good.

As for the frame, I'm rethinking that also. I don't like the angles and want to mimic a store bought Swing Bike. So I'm going to have 2 pieces of the pipe bent in an arc like a Swing Bike frame:

I need to find out how much bend they should get in degrees I guess. I may make a cardboard cutout so the guys at the shop can match them up. Of course the two pipes I cut earlier are too short now, but I have two more that I'll have bent, then I'll cut them to size as I lay out the bike. I think they will get the same bend. If there's a little difference I should be able to find a way to make it fit. The head tubes on a Swing Bike aren't identical like mine so the angles may need tweaked.

 

[Bike from the Dead]

So far so good! I seriously need to build me a swing bike at some point. I remember the first time I rode a swing bike 2 years ago. Some guy brought this bike he built himself to the swap meet, not to sell but to ride around, and he let me try it out after I asked him! He told me the most important thing to do when riding a swing bike for the first time was to "practice going straight before attempting to turn." Really helped, as it was a little tricky keeping it straight at first, but it didn't take long for me to figure out how to swing it after that!

Really enjoyed seeing how you and the Mrs. find materials to use and creative ways to use said materials! Looking forward to seeing this bike come together and hit the road swinging!

 

[Wildcat]

Our neighborhood welder guy came by to weld it up, but had no idea how to bend those pipes. That's a first, over here in the Philippines, they are known to find a way to do or make anything. That's where their public transportation began, they took the Jeeps left from WW2 and made them into Jeepneys, able to carry 20-30 people and more. Chickens, sacks of rice, kareoke machines all can ride. Now made from the ground up as a Jeepney, they have a small 4 cylinder diesel and get people where they are going better and cheaper than any bus system in the US.

So I'll make a template to show the amount of curve and head to the machine shop in town tomorrow. When they see me they know it's going to be something different. The wife must come along to translate.

 

[Wildcat]

We struck out at all the machine shops, and the fabrication places. They couldn't do it because the pipe needed to be a lot longer to bend. But we had breakfast at my favorite spot, and picked up some pizza for later.
So I tried to figure out if I needed to buy a long piece of pipe or steel tubing. I wanted to use what I have so I used a piece of 5/8ths solid rod I keep for tapping out bearing caps and put in between the two pipes. Then I wedged it between the concrete wall and concrete trough along the edge of the shop and it bent! The solid rod bent also but that's no problem. After getting both ends bent at the same angle, it's good.

It's not the even curve like a swing bike but it's the angle I needed. I now just need to trim one end and it's ready to weld.

 

[SkyknightJohn]

The solid bar came out just fine even with the curve in it? I guess if that’s it on the table it’s fairly short. I’ve considered trying this myself for some tubing. Almost acting as a mandrel.

 

[Wildcat]

The solid bar came out just fine even with the curve in it? I guess if that’s it on the table it’s fairly short. I’ve considered trying this myself for some tubing. Almost acting as a mandrel.

To get enough leverage, the solid bar was slid into the ends of the pipes, making it about 5 feet long. I needed that much to get it to bend. As I bent the pipe, the solid rod bent at the connection point between the two pipes. Then I reversed it to do the other pipe.

 

[Wildcat]

I was starting Mother's Day breakfast when an idea struck me. I need to extend the dropouts 2.5" but want to make it look good. Instead of welding on an extension, I may extend the chain stays and keep the dropouts as they are.
I checked a couple of 4" pieces of pipe against the chain stays. They will slide right over them according to my measurement. Just the right width. The stays will get cut and the pipes used as sleeves to get the right length, then welded.

 

[Wildcat]

I didn't give any background on the frame. It's one of the heavy duty workhorse frames they use over here for utility bikes. They usually have a cart or sidecar attached.

Most of the bike frame went to Scurf, the top tubes, seat stays, and headtube.

I'm using the BB and chain stays, that's about all that's left.

 

[Wildcat]

A little cutting and grinding and it's ready for some welding. The chain stay tubing wasn't exactly round, so it needed some persuading to work, and now it's all a snug fit.

 

[LukeTheJoker]

Loving this Wildcat, really enjoying the problem solving.