1940 Airman refresh

[10~18kustoms]

This project started a couple years ago when a good friend found this barn find 1940 Monark Airman back in Illinois somewhere. He brought it to me to have me straighten the bent front fork and do a full clean and refresh on it for him. It appeared to be setting for quite a while, mostly unmolested, and probably had never been apart, so I figured it would need a good H2O soak before trying to dissemble it so not to break bolts and screws and knuckles. And probably an OA bath after that. The weather wasn't right for that then, so it went to the back burner until warmer days.

During that wait, I acquired it in a trade, and then it really went further back on the burner since my bikes usually get done after customer bikes. But finally after 2 years the forecast was for upper 90s and dry for a week so the tank was filled.

Perfect time for a soak!

 

[10~18kustoms]

After 2 days soaking the bike was fully dissembled, with no broken bolts or screws. Uncle Larry Mong's good 'ol H2O soak really does help loosen up years of rust and crust and helps things come apart better than all the high dollar, stinky "buster loose" products out there. Only problem.....now that it was apart, there were many more issues to deal with. The bent fork was worse than I have usually dealt with since it was bent at the forks, and not the tube. At some point, our worst nightmare, battery's had been left in and leaked creating a hole in the bottom of the tank and the horn battery holder. And, years of used grease and dirt road build up.

 

[10~18kustoms]

OK sorry guys, I am terrible about stopping and taking pictures while I'm working so there are not pictures of a lot of what was done. And my internet was also down most of last week when a lot of this was getting done so I'm kinda fast forwarding to get caught up to date.

The fork straightening was not as bad as I expected. I couldn't use the normal solid bar I usually use that goes down in the steer tube, but I was able to find a pipe that was just the right size to fit over the forks and was able cold bend them one at a time back to straight. This is something I'm glad I was doing on a bike of my own and not a customers bike because anytime you are cold bending it's a crap shoot.

The major challenge was getting all the years of grease and dirt off the painted parts so it could be OA bathed. I added about a half of bottle of Dawn dishwashing soap to the H2o in the tank and in went all the parts for a 24 soak. I used a kitchen sponge, and plastic brush and lots of scrubbing and most of the grime came off. The wheel hubs did need a little help from some engine degreaser and a brass brush, but they turned out pretty good too.
Before and after.

 

[10~18kustoms]

The painted surfaces all cleaned up way better than I expected so I decided to skip the OA bath. I then broke my own rule to never oil a bike and tried a tip from a friend (you know who you are) and used a fast drying gun oil.
Very light coat rubbed in deep, left out to dry in the heat for a few hours, then rubbed off again with clean cloth. I am pretty happy with the color, and no real greasy feeling.
Before:

After:

Nice color:

 

[rollfaster]

Looking great Marty!

 

[Sven]

Outstanding job, sir.

 

[oldfart36]

Seeing this reminds me of the trip to "Toad Lick" Indiana to grab it up!!! Yes, that was the true name of the town. I've always known the decision to bring it to you, was the correct one, that frontend, and the way it was bent truly concerned me! Looking great Marty, love it!!!! Also notice you've added the light mount you told me about.
The day I got home with the "Toad Lick Special"

 

[Boris]

Looks great! I don't know about you, but I've had had terrible results with OA baths and red paint. Maybe I'm doing something wrong, but I've had stuff fade from red to pink. Have you done OA baths on red paint before?

 

[10~18kustoms]

Looks great! I don't know about you, but I've had had terrible results with OA baths and red paint. Maybe I'm doing something wrong, but I've had stuff fade from red to pink. Have you done OA baths on red paint before?

No, I haven't done much red. I did do a black and orange bike last year it turned out ok. I just did a super rusty bike for a friend, we couldn't even tell what color the bike was originally. But after an OA soak it turned out to be black and red. There was only about 50% of the paint left there, the rest was chipped off and just rusty bare frame. The red actually looked pretty good and didn't seem to fade or turn pink.

 

[10~18kustoms]

When found the bike had a basket on the front as well as the rear baskets and had no signs of ever having a headlight (no holes in fender). I had only seen the Streamline style and torpedo lights on that era rocket style Monark frame before. A quick search of the internet and I found a catalog page and a couple other examples of that bike with a ball style headlight, with a between the fender and fork bracket, that had been removed to make way for the basket. I have been looking for that bracket for the last couple years, but so far no luck. I had a ball headlight and wanted to use it so I fabricated a bracket that looks similar to the ones I found in pictures. It will have to do until a real one is found, if ever.

My bracket, made out of a scrap from a Studebaker truck window channel.