# 1970 20inch Schwinn Typhoon



## sfhschwinn (Apr 11, 2014)

Just picked this up last night. It was on Craigslist last summer for $150 but before I could get to it the ad was taken down. I looked yesterday and the ad was back up but for only $75!. I called the guy and he accepted my offer of $50. I got there and he gave me a  1960's Huffy with a persons seat for FREE! with my purchase. The seat was covered in white paint and I spent 2 hours cleaning it off. Stripped down the bike this morning, cleaned the whole thing, re-greased the bearings and now its rides great with the original Westwind tires. Just have to clean the pedals when I get a chance and fix the electric horn it came with as shown in before pic and then put on an adult blue S seat as this one is to small for me. What do my fellow Cabers think?


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## bricycle (Apr 11, 2014)

Awesome, I didn't know they came that small.....


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## Euphman06 (Apr 11, 2014)

Very cool! Wish I could find something like that close to me. I'd rather buy vintage for my kids, than the new junk, lol. Good job on the cleanup, that blue is pretty nice!


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## sfhschwinn (Apr 11, 2014)

Bricycle- I have found that the small Typhoons are extremely hard to find. I live in NY and I have only seen two this one and one in NJ. I was very lucky that no one inquired about this bike last year when it was first being sold and that I just happened to look on craigslist and remembered that this was the same one but only for half the original asking price.

Euphman- Thanks and yeah the vintage/antique ones are so much better than todays stuff. I buy and sell bikes (mostly vintage) to pay for college and support my Schwinn collecting. I have 11 Schwinns  and one day when I have kids the only bikes they will get are antique Schwinns.


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## King Bongo (Apr 11, 2014)

Hi there, great find. These are great little bikes, I have black '67 Typhoon 20". Both of my kids have ridden it, they had a blast riding it.


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## sfhschwinn (Apr 11, 2014)

they are awesome to ride around on I get stopped all the time when I ride my antiques but they are hard to ride long distances when you are 5' 11 lol


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## greenephantom (Apr 12, 2014)

The 20" Typhoons are neat. Same frame as the Sting-Ray Junior. And yeah, they don't turn up very often. Decent price for a bike that has (and will) stand the test of time. I have a first year Typhoon 20" with the straight bars that I need to get out of the shed and knock into riding condition for the kids. Ah, things to do.
Cheers, Geoff


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## Crazy8 (Apr 12, 2014)

Nice!  Love the color too.   Pick up one of those repro 20" tanks and have it painted with Schwinn decals to match the bike.  The repop tanks are around $100 on ebay.  Odds are they never made original paint tanks in blue.




My wife is 4'10", so she fit on it pretty good.  Even my short 7 year old could've ridden it with training wheels.


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## King Bongo (Apr 12, 2014)

Crazy8 said:


> Nice!  Love the color too.   Pick up one of those repro 20" tanks and have it painted with Schwinn decals to match the bike.  The repop tanks are around $100 on ebay.  Odds are they never made original paint tanks in blue.
> 
> View attachment 146471
> My wife is 4'10", so she fit on it pretty good.  Even my short 7 year old could've ridden it with training wheels.
> View attachment 146477




That looks great!! Love it!


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## sfhschwinn (Apr 13, 2014)

that typhoon is awesome. I am definitely going to buy a tank for it. Thanks


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## sfhschwinn (Feb 27, 2015)

Here is an update to this bike. I bought a front wald rack for it on ebay, changed the stem to a standard Schwinn one but may change it back depending on how I like the look, and I will have to get a tank soon as well.


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## Pantmaker (Mar 1, 2015)

The stems that come on the early 20" bikes scale better with the overall bike than the full size stems, but they are a little goofy with the single wedge bolt that "conveniently" also serves as the bolt that clamps the handlebars. I got my twins 20" DXs and they are by far the two coolest kid bikes in the neighborhood now.   Admittedly, the field of modern bikes in that size is mostly china garbage and completely inappropriate for American children.


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## sfhschwinn (Mar 2, 2015)

Pantmaker said:


> The stems that come on the early 20" bikes scale better with the overall bike than the full size stems, but they are a little goofy with the single wedge bolt that "conveniently" also serves as the bolt that clamps the handlebars. I got my twins 20" DXs and they are by far the two coolest kid bikes in the neighborhood now.   Admittedly, the field of modern bikes in that size is mostly china garbage and completely inappropriate for American children.



You are exactly right! I was a kid in the 90s and my parents bought my brother and I bikes from walmart except one Schwinn from a bike store. In 2009 that's when I began collecting and I hate all this china garbage. I run a little shop in my garage and when people come in with vintage its usually for tune ups but wen china crap appears there are always major problems and usually costs the person at least half or more of what the bike is actually worth. example to replace a crank set 3 piece or 1 piece about $20-30 for the crank and another $5-10 for labor.


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## island schwinn (Mar 2, 2015)

Cool little bike.
A bit of advice though,if you plan on riding it with the seat up high enough for you,might consider finding a longer seatpost from a stingray or excercise bike.the shorter post doesn't sit in the seat tube very far when raised up and can bend and cause damage to the post and tube.learned that the hard way.


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## sfhschwinn (Mar 2, 2015)

island schwinn said:


> Cool little bike.
> A bit of advice though,if you plan on riding it with the seat up high enough for you,might consider finding a longer seatpost from a stingray or excercise bike.the shorter post doesn't sit in the seat tube very far when raised up and can bend and cause damage to the post and tube.learned that the hard way.



 Check, already did that! I had a customer once who put the post up on a modern bike so high that he bent the post completely backward at a 30-45 degree angle. I have the post I am going to take a pic and post it when I can


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## mandrb (Aug 27, 2017)

I am new to The Cabe and just found your post even though it is pretty old. I have a similar Typhoon that all my brothers and I rode in the 70's that we modified by putting a banana seat on and chopper handlebars. Now I have started to restore it and found the original seat, but didn't locate the original handlebars. Do you know what the part number is on your handlebars? I hope to try to make it as close to original as possible.


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## GTs58 (Aug 27, 2017)

mandrb said:


> I am new to The Cabe and just found your post even though it is pretty old. I have a similar Typhoon that all my brothers and I rode in the 70's that we modified by putting a banana seat on and chopper handlebars. Now I have started to restore it and found the original seat, but didn't locate the original handlebars. Do you know what the part number is on your handlebars? I hope to try to make it as close to original as possible.




The 20" 1962  #7817 Boy Scout type 17.5" wide
64-65-66  #7888
67 # 7881  Just this one shown for all size frames but that could be a spec oversight and may also be #7888.


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## mandrb (Aug 27, 2017)

GTs58 said:


> The 20" 1962  #7817 Boy Scout type 17.5" wide
> 64-65-66  #7888
> 67 # 7881  Just this one shown for all size frames but that could be a spec oversight and may also be #7888.




Thanks.


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## OptimusJay (Aug 29, 2017)

A few years back I found a nice little 20" Fiesta for my daughter.  Fun little mini middleweights.


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