# 73 Huffy Tokheim



## ReVo (Feb 21, 2014)

My best friend of many years just gave this to me as a Christmas gift to fix up and make rideable again. It's a sort of rare bike and I really wanted to see it up and rolling again.




You may remember it from the post he made last year. 
http://thecabe.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=41530

To start off matters I will post pics of the Tokheim derailleur disassembly when I get it torn down to clean and re-pack the bearings. I know a few of you will be interested in how to refresh one if need be. (I gave it a go earlier and it's kinda tricky so I may post a video instead of a pictorial walkthrough) 



I knew that most of the chrome on this was toasty so I did some craigslist searching and found a perfect donor bike, an 80 something huffy sea pines 3 speed in great shape. For 15 bucks I couldn't argue. The bars, crank, pedals, chain ring, calipers, brake levers, and seat post interchange perfectly with this bike so I scored pretty well. I also stole the front wheel off it since the Tokheim's was fully toasted.



My girlfriend thought I was crazy because I had it torn down completely within 20 minutes of getting it home.

 (i have a few left over parts from this bike if anyone is interested in them)

I found a really nice close to stock Viscount saddle on feebay for 5 bucks. (cost more to ship the darn thing than what I paid for it) 


You can see the similarities between saddles in this huffy catalog page.




As she sits now... 


I tore it down and have been trying my best to refresh the paint some and have been "scrubbin' rims" and chrome for the past few days with bar keepers friend. So much so my arms are sore... 

Tonight I just hit up the cycle shop and picked up some sweet gum walls, a chain, and a replacement shift cable. 



More to come...

~Ron~


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## mre straightbar (Feb 22, 2014)

*cool bike*

Lightwieghts are great commuters
Spare parts are everywhere
Not a big fan of gum walls though


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## ReVo (Feb 24, 2014)

Almost done cleaning parts. Just test fit her together... Still gotta clean the front wheel and switch out the tires... Home stretch!






~Ron~


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## ReVo (Feb 25, 2014)

Done!










I media blasted the Tokheim derailleur, repainted the main body with silver acrylic enamel, and re-packed all the bearings.



After dialing it in inside the shop I realized why it never caught on; It's jerky and awkward. It constantly makes noises when in 2nd thru 4th like a cassette style derailleur stuck between gears. Even with that I must say it rides out nice and shifts flawlessly. It's certainly unlike anything I've ridden before. You could say it's got a personality all it's own! 
I apologize for not doing a walkthrough on rebuilding one. After seeing the lack of interest in the thread I figured not many would make use of it. If someone asks I will certainly do one later on!

As for the bike overall... I love it! It's a rusty yellow pile but it's one of a kind.

~Ron~


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## Adamtinkerer (Feb 26, 2014)

Neat, I've never even heard of one, let alone seen one!


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## ReVo (Feb 26, 2014)

Adamtinkerer said:


> Neat, I've never even heard of one, let alone seen one!




It was only a one or two year run for them around 73-74 and I think that the huffy sportsman was the only bicycle it was utilized on. They did not refer to it as a derailleur, rather they called it an "interposer" since the chain isn't necessarily derailled but lifted from cog to cog in order to change gears. You can occasionally find them on ebay, but rarely ever on the bicycle they originally came on. 













It's still cool to see people trying to reinvent the wheel so to speak!

~Ron~


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## Stinky_Sullivan (May 13, 2014)

Ron, if you took pics of the hub rebuild, post them up. I just came across this thread. How far did you disassemble the hub? I'm saving the Tokheim hub I have for a special project. I tried disassembling it shortly after I got it and it was not easy.

Glad to see you got the bike rideable. If you ever decide to shelve it, you know who wants it.


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## Hunk of Cheese (Feb 8, 2015)

Nice!  I grew up with this bike, it was my first multi-speed bike, handed down from my parents.  They still have a pair of them and some spare parts in their basement.  I spent a lot of time pondering how the shifter works.  

Your new saddle looks exactly like the original, but you put the handlebars back on upside-down!

Watch out for the flexy, grabby brakes, and the glossy handgrips get very slick and hard to twist with sweaty hands!

Hope you've enjoyed it these past couple years, your post brought back a lot of memories.



Your new seat looks exactly


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## ReVo (Feb 9, 2015)

I'm glad it brought back memories for you! I have since flipped the bars back so it's actually rideable. For tooling around its really nice because it's almost effortless to pedal since it weighs next to nothing.
As for the grabby brakes... You are completely right,  it's all or nothing! =) 

~Ron~


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## Andrew Gorman (Feb 9, 2015)

Here's some information on the Tokheim system. with some appropriately snide  comments on Huffy's world famous quality.  This bike, and an Aerowind  are definitely Huffy's worth working on, even if the brakes will never work right. An interesting idea, but yet another solution in search of a problem.  BUT I am a sucker for monkey motion mechanisms.
http://www.parktool.com/blog/calvins-corner/tokheim-shifting-system


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## Duchess (Feb 10, 2015)

I love all the different ideas people tried in the history of the bicycle. Even the failures are interesting. Cool project. At first I thought it was something like a dog box and I almost hurt myself trying to figure out in my head how it was designed. Then I scrolled down ... ohhhh, yeah, that makes way more sense!


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## bike (Feb 10, 2015)

Andrew Gorman said:


> Here's some information on the Tokheim system. ...
> http://www.parktool.com/blog/calvins-corner/tokheim-shifting-system




I learned that clip on reflectors were requried in 1972...


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## wrongway (Feb 11, 2015)

So, that's what that thing is, a derailleur! I saw one in a junk pile along with some other bikes and couldn't figure out what it was. How many gears is that? Looks like the bike turned out great!


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