The Schwinn three-speed “bike build” turned into the most involved project I’ve ever attempted. It began with the idea that I could simply clean up and tune up an old bike that had belonged to my family. My dad bought it at a flea market for my mom to ride, but I’m not sure she ever did. It was in a shed, then in the bushes. Years went by, in the sun and rain, and that didn’t help it much.
One day I noticed that it had a Sturmey-Archer SC3 hub, and I was intrigued with the idea of getting the bike working again. It’s a three-speed hub with a coaster brake. I decided to either re-purpose the hub or fix up the bike. Or something.
While things looked pretty good, as I got cleaning it up I discovered one rusted out problem area after another. It was beginning to look like the hub was about all that was really good about the bike. I found a bent spot in the frame. I found that the seat post and the stem were both seized. One pedal was rusted and seized. The rims were terribly rusted.
So I decided the frame was toast. I probably could have salvaged it, but knowing that it was just another ‘70s gas pipe steel Schwinn frame, I wasn’t going to stick money into it. For $10 (plus $30 for shipping!) I bought a men’s 70s Schwinn Speedster frame.
Then I discovered that the front wheel was rusted through. I had one more old bike lying out in the yard, and as luck would have it, it had 26x1-3/8 wheels as well, and it wasn’t a bike I had any interest in saving. So I pulled that wheel into service for this project. It was turning into a true Franken-bike, with parts from at least three bikes on it.
I salvaged some pedals. One of the original pedals was good, the other was rusted and wouldn’t spin. Since they were not serviceable pedals, I rooted around and found a matching pedal from another old bike that looked right. So that was the fourth bike that donated.
I had replaced the seat post from the Murray bike I rebuilt over the winter, and it had the same style of seat post as this bike, so that made parts from five different bikes.
I finally had to start buying parts. I needed all new cables, a new chain, a new 3-speed trigger shifter, a new stem, new rim strips, tubes and tires. I needed new head cups, cones and bearings. Same for the bottom bracket.
I put it all together while waiting for the tires to arrive. Here’s a photo of it as of this week:
I’m not sure I can live with a stem that long! But I won’t know until I get everything put together and tires on it and take it for a test ride. I have another bike that would be happy to swap with it, a single speed cruiser that would look fine with high handlebars.
The tires finally arrived. I did the front wheel first, since it’s a little easier to get on and off the bike right now. Everything worked great.
Then I tried to mount the back tire. No go! I had run across this issue before, and it’s hard to figure out. Schwinn had its own proprietary 26” bike wheel size that was different from other manufacturers’ 26” wheel. The front wheel worked fine, using a conventional 26x1-3/8 tire. But the back wheel, the Schwinn wheel, is 7 mm larger. So I’ve had to order a special S7 Schwinn tire for it. The tires are by the same manufacturer and have the same style, but it bugs my sense of symmetry that the two wheels will be a different size and use different size tires.
Now to wait for the new tire. In the meantime, I can replace the front fender and start cleaning rust off the back fender and the rear rack.
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