ORBO Vanilla Ice Icebreaker!

[Bike from the Dead]

My third and final entry for this year's Off Road Build Off is this 1990ish Huffy Chesapeake. I got it a garage sale for $5 a few years ago for the parts, particularly the 3-speed coaster brake wheel. However, after discovering a new favorite subreddit of mine, r/xbiking, I've decided to resurrect this parts-donor Huffy as a '90s-inspired mountain bike. Here's how it looked when I got it back in 2022:

Out of the 3 bikes I hope to build for this year's ORBO, this Huffy will be the most ambitious of the bunch. While all 3 bikes will be a learning experience for me when it comes to wheel cassettes, derailleurs, shifters, external brakes and all things multi-speed, I'm genuinely hoping to finally learn how to properly paint a bike for the first time on this Huffy. I'm still building this bike with mostly old parts I have laying around, but I want this bike to look a little nicer than my previous builds. I'm not going for a strictly period- or manufacturer-correct build, but I'd like for this Huffy to at least look factory stock.

That said, I do have a long history of biting off more than I can chew, and if trying to build 3 bikes in 3 months wasn't challenging enough, learning how to paint when the weather's at its most difficult could really slow this project down. Still, 3 bikes means 3 times the chance of completing at least one of them, so I'm ready to get some bikes built!

 

[Bike from the Dead]

Earlier this past December, I pulled the remains of the Huffy and a bunch of parts out of storage to mock up this bike and just see if it was 1. possible, and 2. something I'd even like.

I also found out that there are a couple mysterious holes in the bottom bracket for some reason, plus a hole for the chain guard bolt. Can't say I want either of those there if I'm going to be riding this thing on dusty gravel trails. I might be able to weld some sort of plug to keep debris out, but I found another solution that might be even easier and a little more fun. (More on that later.)

I spread out the rear triangle to fit a mountain bike wheel, threw on a few other parts quickly, and took a look at it. Although it was a bit rough, that first mockup was enough to convince me that this would work. I was thinking of making this an 18 or 21-speed bike, but the only 3-speed chainring on a single-piece crank I had was this one rusty black on I had planned to use on another bike. I kind of wanted something a little nicer than that. Fortunately, I remembered another donor bike I had in storage that would really make this Huffy stand out!

 

[Bike from the Dead]

Check it out! I got this 24in Huffy-built Free Spirit "Wild Side" for free a while back for all the purple parts, and I just knew those parts would look perfect on this '90s-style mountain bike!

I brought it home, stuck it on the work stand, and gave the brakes and shifters a test before taking it all apart. Everything seemed to be in decent working order!

Not only did this bike have this cool purple chainring and handlebars, but it even had a set of intact purple cable housings!

I had planned to reuse the cable clamps on this mountain bike, but they didn't fit the larger frame. Oh well, I can use zip ties or find something else online if I need to.

By the way, here's how you remove those darn things. Took me way too long to figure this out, and the solution was so easy it was stupid!

I stripped that bike clean of all its parts. Part of me would've loved to fix up this funky little bike and ride it around, but this will all be worth it!

Just like the Huffy Chesapeake, this also bike has a couple factory holes in the bottom bracket.

Unlike the Chesapeake though, it has this thick sticker covering them up. I guess a dealer serial number or something? I don't know. Either way, I'm wondering if I could get away with covering up the holes in my frame with a thick sticker too. Maybe I could recreate this one to make it look factory?

 

[Bike from the Dead]

After I got that Free Spirit donor disassembled, I threw the parts on the Chesapeake. Amazingly, I think I could totally use the cables and housings off the 24in bike on this larger 26in bike! I may have to swap a couple around for it to really work, but I bet it's totally doable!

I also threw on this hot pink basket I got from another donor bike, and a pink wheel and seat, thinking it'd go well with the purple. I was all set to use that pink seat and the 2 pink wheels I had (the rear is a coaster brake, so I'd have to rebuild it,) but the moment I sat down on it, I knew it wasn't going to happen. That seat is nothing more than a thinly-padded hard plastic BMX seat, and there was no way I wanted to sit on that as I was ripping through the bumpy gravel trail! So, the pink seat, wheels and basket were a no-go.

That said, I still like these magenta brakes enough that I'd still like to use them. I just had the one hot pink brake that came off the same bike as the basket, but it's not happening.

While the pink seat didn't pan out, I found another seat in my stash that will work much better.

And it's even the same brand!

Once I got the basic idea of what the final build would look like, I started going though my paints to see what I colors I had that would go well with the purple parts.

Ultimately, this is the color palette I'm working with: Teal, Purple and White. Doesn't get much more '90s than that. Those Jazz Solo cups were a big inspiration for that. I may or may not use the Ocean Mist paint for this bike, but we'll see.

 

[rickpaulos]

the white sticker was added on for Sears. 507 is a supplier code, the rest is a catalog number at Sears. Sears got their start as a mail order catalog company so every item got a number for ordering. There are many lists of Sears supplier codes on the www. Most have been compiled for specific areas of interest. None are complete and some conflict.

Huffy stamped their numbers on after the frames were painted. Not good. The paint would chip off, rust gets under and flakes off the paint. Makes it hard to read the numbers. The numbers are rather faint in the metal and sanding the paint off doesn't help make them easier to read. Huffy made thousands of models of bikes so 5 digits should have been enough for the model number followed by Dash, or Dash Dash or H or Huffy in the middle, then a sequence number. Sometimes they reversed the order, ie, serial-Huffy-model number.

Some time you can get lucky and find a matching model number in the department store catalogs. Huffy made so many models and the stores only carried a small selection each year. Odds are you won't find a match.

 

[Bike from the Dead]

After the physical mockups, I got to work on the digital mockups. It took a bit longer than expected because I was still trying to salvage the idea of using pink on the bike, but without the pink seat, it just looked unbalanced. Once I stuck to just teal, purple and white, it wasn't long before I came up with something I liked. I was trying to think of a name fitting for a mountain bike, and between the colors and the fact that I had "Ice Ice Baby" on the brain, ICEBREAKER just seemed appropriate. I had an idea that if I masked off the teal or white paint with ripped painters tape, it could look like ice breaking up. I also thought maybe some purple lightning between the cracks would look cool, but I don't know if that idea will stick or not.

The only thing I can't decide on is whether I'd want blackwall or gumwall tires. The blackwall tires give it a more consistent color scheme, but the gumwalls just feel like something I'd see on a '90s mountain bike. Kind of fitting, since the bike that most inspired the paint job, a Huffy Glacier mountain bike I found on Google, had gumwalls .

When I showed my idea to @billn, he said it made him think of a 1986 Raleigh Ultra Shock BMX bike, something I wasn't even thinking of! I can see why though!

What's funny is that I also saw actual Huffy mountain bikes with the same frame, so it just made that much more since to build this one up as one!

So that's where I'm at with this Huffy right now. I know how I want to build it, I have a good idea of how I want to paint it, I just need to make it happen!

 

[Bike from the Dead]

the white sticker was added on for Sears. 507 is a supplier code, the rest is a catalog number at Sears. Sears got their start as a mail order catalog company so every item got a number for ordering. There are many lists of Sears supplier codes on the www. Most have been compiled for specific areas of interest. None are complete and some conflict.

Huffy stamped their numbers on after the frames were painted. Not good. The paint would chip off, rust gets under and flakes off the paint. Makes it hard to read the numbers. The numbers are rather faint in the metal and sanding the paint off doesn't help make them easier to read. Huffy made thousands of models of bikes so 5 digits should have been enough for the model number followed by Dash, or Dash Dash or H or Huffy in the middle, then a sequence number. Sometimes they reversed the order, ie, serial-Huffy-model number.

Some time you can get lucky and find a matching model number in the department store catalogs. Huffy made so many models and the stores only carried a small selection each year. Odds are you won't find a match.

Thanks for the info! I had a feeling Free Spirit was a Sears brand, but the rest of that is news to me. Yeah, I don't get why you'd stamp the frame after paint, but I guess it was just cheaper that way, or they were just being cheap. Sounds like I'd have to do some serious digging to really find out more about these specific Huffies.