# Early Elgin Moto "Redemption"



## ThegoodThebad&Therusty (May 17, 2018)

Somewhere, left neglected for decades as time marched on in a dark forgotten place located in the midwest lurked this specimen waiting for redemption...




As the story was told, along came an antique dealer, perhaps picking an estate sale and from darkness came the light...




 The good : The overall condition is quite good considering it's approaching 90 years old+-.(photos courtesy of ebay listing from where I purchased the bike)
















Internals of the rear hub as I found them were amazingly sanitary -



The bad: Upon unpacking I found out the rear mud guard braces were both broken in half in the middle where the hole is drilled for the attachment screw. I had those welded up and re-drilled and tapped. I also discovered a shattered ball bearing in one of the headset bearing cages. Thankfully the races were undamaged.
There was the expected fossilized bearing grease in the bottom bracket and headset bearings and when I got around to breaking down the front hub, I ran into this setback, a munched bearing cone -





 Had some tribulations with the pedals. I knew the bike was missing them but I had a pair stashed away just waiting for a project like this one so that didn't matter. These were the intended units, NOS Torringtons -




Problem being I never opened the package they were sent in and when it came time to clean them up for this project I discovered they were both L-side pedals...Wa-wa-waaaaa...
OK, time to go in a different direction. I decided to go with a pair of appropriately worn Torrington 8's that matched the 'patina' of the bike more closely, like this one -








Now I'm not particularly a 'rock the rust' kind of guy so I gave em' a soak in Evaporust. Here's an example of a before and after -




Pedal problem #2 arose when I broke these 8's down to service the bearings after the Evaporust treatment I discovered one of them (the left one) had a non Torrington replacement shaft and the bearings needed to be replaced on both of them. To solve this problem I ordered new bearings and decided to seek a NOS R-side Torrington I could switch out with the extra L-side on the NOS pedals I already had, capische ?

Well the ebay gods were smiling and I was able to snag an orphaned NOS Torrington R-side to cannibalize and switch out with the extra L-side to complete a perfect pair of two pedal sets. Later I bought a third discounted set just to cannibalize these red diamond pattern pedal blocks off of and I settled on this configuration  -




The interesting: Found some interesting stampings along the way...




Stamp on the original cross brace handle bars that came with the bike.




Can't tell if this is stamped '00' or 'CC'. Never seen this before so I don't know if it's unusual.




The all important bottom bracket stamping. Would love some feedback from someone more knowledgeable regarding the date of manufacture -




Shout out to the CABE's 'GORDY' (Gordon) for furnishing the model M bearing cones I used on this build




I have reached my upload limit. To be continued...


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## ThegoodThebad&Therusty (May 18, 2018)

The final details: I knew going in I was going to use Velocity Blunt rims with stainless double butted spokes. I couldn't pull the trigger on which exact tires I was going with until I mounted the wheels to determine clearance tolerances so it was a matter of sourcing the rims, spokes & nipples, first things first.
The rims were sourced from 365cycles.com. The spokes were custom cut and threaded by my man Marcus @ yojimbosgarage out of Chicago and the spoke nipples were courtesy of none other than sm2501.
Out with the old -




In with the new -




Once I got the wheels laced and mounted I determined I could proceed with the maximum width Schwalbe Big Ben tires I sourced from Planet Cyclery and they-are-tttight 






McCasky's nipples -




Last but not least I had this hankering for some tiller bars I couldn't shake so a shout out to fellow CABE'r 'escape*artist' (Gerald) for selling those to me.
So with a little CABE DNA (Gordon, Gerald, & McCasky) and a NOS Diamond chain I had squirreled away years ago I ended up with _this_ magnificent bastard -




She's-a-gotta profile only Patric Cafaro could love and there's a few more accessories I have yet to source but thar-she-_blowwwwsssss_....


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