# Help ID. Chicago Welding Roadmaster or ????? Trexlertown project bike find.



## DJ Bill (Oct 13, 2013)

*Chicago Welding Roadmaster project bike.*

A nice gentleman with a very unusual step van/pickup truck conversion sold this to me at Trexlertown 2013 just before he started loading up his truck. My intent was to use the frame as a base for a WWII style clone bike, but the more I play with it the more I think I might go for a period civilian look.

Anyhow hours of online searching have only found one definite thing ..It is a CWC sprocket.  Any ideas on the rest would be appreciated. Also sources for the missing stuff, bargain basement rusty stuff is fine.

Here's the first batch of pics.. more to come. New departure rear hub, measurements of head tube and badge holes (vertical) pics of markings on crankset area..

Seems to be consensus it is a lower line CWC Roadmaster, probably a no tank version, and fairly early prewar??

Is there a way to move this to the project build sectoin, or does it matter?


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## DJ Bill (Oct 13, 2013)

*more pics, an overall shot ...*

Pics went in backwards but I'm learning slowly...As you can see fork is bent pretty badly and it even bent the tubular part the bearings are on...It has a truss rod bracket on the stem..   Rest of the frame is pretty straight, handlebars are wrecked with bad dents, stem is also really bent. I didn't get pedals, but found a set at someone else's table (Wrapped in medical waste tape, you know who ya are..lol) ......Grips are red sparkle, say JAPAN on them....somehow I doubt they went with the bike. Kickstand I assume is a period accessory. 

Some paint archeology reveals it was originally a blue very similar to the CABE background, with ivory trim near the headbadge area....

Any thoughts on what exactly it is would be appreciated.. I don't really care what it is worth, as it is so far gone I doubt there is much value...but it will live again if I have anything to do with it. 

I'd like to get either a matching front wheel or a pair of heavier rims that use the heavy spokes.. I really like the way the military wheels look, and the added  strength would be helpful too.


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## rustjunkie (Oct 13, 2013)

That's a neat frame; Cleveland Welding. 
Looks like the top tube is cracked/separated from the seat tube?
Fork can be repaired but finding another might be better.


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## DJ Bill (Oct 13, 2013)

All the frame tube junctions appear to be resistance welded together with a line around each weld that appears to be a crack, except some of the joints, particularly the ones at the seat post are brazed and finished off nicely and smoothed so they look like the newer electrowelded Schwinns.. I don't think it is cracked but I may be wrong. There was som much paint on the frame it was chipping and alligatoring in huge chunks, and the lines you may see in some of the pics are cracks in the PAINT!!

Do you think the fork is original?  It really took a hard hit. It shows signs of all the repaints but I haven't done the scraping to see if it was blue undeneath yet.


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## DJ Bill (Oct 20, 2013)

After scraping most of the three paint jobs off the frame

interesting mix of brazing , gas welding and resistance welding...

 got more sanding to do..

Original paint seemed like a pastel blue, I measured where the white started and stopped as best as I could before I stripped all the paint off.  Lots of rust to deal with where the alligatoring cracks allowed water to sit.


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## DJ Bill (Oct 27, 2013)

Here's a mockup after the memory lane meet, needed something to do at the Laundromat so I loosely assembled it. Fenders came off the same Roadmaster as the fork but rear doesn't fit right. I can make it work when I get home where the welders are. Handlebars and stem are place holders for now till the ones from Ebay show up. Wheels are probably newer than bike, they, the fenders and fork all came from the same parted out bike at MLC Friday. I was able to tension up the back wheel but the front had several seized up spokes so it has to wait a while till the penetraqnt works or I get new spokes.(The eventual plan anyhow) 

No value to cracked worn original tires, are there? I think they'd pop if you put more than 5 PSI in them, I have some new ones to ride it on.Rear is a Peak Performance Crest Deluxe, front is a Carlisle lightning. 


Should I start a new project thread in the right section?


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## DJ Bill (Jan 20, 2014)

Well, I have driven a few more oversize runs since my last post..When I was home a while back I left the frame at a local body shop to blast and epoxy prime. Decided to have them hit it with some high build primer surface too. Still a couple small spots needing some spot putty type filler, but most of the frame is almost paint ready. 




Tonight was wheel building night as you can see...I never built a bike wheel before. I looked at all the youtube videos and all the how to's I could find.... but they all wer for a three cross pattern. The spokes I had gotten off ebay (atticarcheologist) were about 4mm shorter than what I had on the bike for some reason, so I laced the front wheel in a three cross pattern to see if they would work. 




Well, that didn't turn out right. So I went searching for 4 cross videos...and found one that added a couple key points...like twisting the hub so the spokes slanted away from the valve hole after the first 19 spokes...and another one about the slanted holes and which side should be the drive....and on the second try, I got the rear wheel done..




Sharp eyes might notice it isn't the original skiptooth hub...I was just wanting to see if the spokes were going to work or if I had to return them, so I used a NOS  Mexico Bendix morrow repop as a place holder for now. I left the old hub laced up to the old spokes as a reference until I knew I could do it. Here's how I did it, but the front hub...




Next is unlacing the rims and refinishing them, now that I am confident I can reassemble them with the parts I have. I discovered my front axle was 5/16, not the 3/8 I had picked up on eBay, so I need to get a new one of those.. I also discovered the last guy to rebuild that front hub put some washers between the bearings and the hub shell for some unknown reason, and that was part of why it was so gnarly. 

The adventure continues...lots of sanding and painting to be done now. I grabbed an old looking but comfy Troxel out of my stash to use once it is together, but I wish I had bought one of ML's sale seats at the last swap meet.....Gotta polish up my replacement handlebars and stem too. Hopefully the lucky 7 seatpost will clean up and look OK in silver paint.


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