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1942? Cycle Truck klunker build
- Thread starter sworley
- Start date
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Schwinn Sales West
Cruisin' on my Bluebird
Yes, the cantilever brakes need to not have the cables rubbing on anything to work and retract smoothly. I would look into using the "V" brakes which have the cable coming in from the side. Not only do you have potential interference problem with the basket and basket base wood, but you have potential problems if you choose to use a front mounted center stand. It looks like you might have plans (no fork bosses) to drop the front stand? Having two Cycle Trucks, I can't imagine "not having a front center stand" and only a crank mounted kickstand. The advantage of the Cycle Truck is the "stationary" front frame mounted basket. But it makes the weight "front biased" and anything you want to put into the basket only makes the balance problem worse. As a suggestion, maybe copy the original center stand design, but fabricate something custom that will also work with your new brakes/basket. I would recommend the welded-on stand bosses, and not the Pre-War axle mounts if you end up custom fabricating a center stand. Worse case, a disk brake front hub would be very cool.
John
Schwinn Sales West
Cruisin' on my Bluebird
Looking at that bike from the side profile, here's what I see. A Ford Bronco, a vehicle that is street worthy, but has light "off road" potential. A do it all type vehicle". You are going to need some serious horsepower to pedal that in the dirt, or at the very least "some gears".
I see a (low cost) yard sale scavenged Schwinn Collegiate or Suburban Five Speed for a parts doner. You want to use a five-speed model for the wider gearing. Wide range gearing, use the entire drivetrain, including the 3/32" 46t front sprocket, 3/32" chain, and the 14-32 (34?) freewheel. I'd definitely use a Suntour/Shimano ratchet thumb shifter. Don't buy a parts bike with a front freewheel, or Positron equipped because it will just make interchanging parts more difficult.
"V" type cantilever brakes front and rear, or in a perfect world, use a disk brake hub on the front. The fact that the bike uses 36-hole hubs/rims open up a lot of choices. Early Mountain Bike brake levers would look cool, but short BMX levers would still work fine.
There needs to be a way for this bike to "stand up" on a dirt trail in soft soil/grass without falling over. You don't want to lose all of your water bottle contents. A conventional side stand, or a rear Whizzer center stand is not going to cut it, because the load is all on the front, and the weight will not always be centered, and will be changing in your basket. This brings my thoughts back to a stock "looking" front wheel. front fork mounted center. Depending on the fabrication resources you could make a "copy stand" out of aluminum tubing or channel. Even thin wall D.O.M. tubing would be strong and lighter than the original stand. The stand has to have the end that interlocks with the "Y" on the bike frame to add to the stand's stability. Having a bike "without a front fender" poses the problem of where to mount the clip to hold the stand up during riding. I'd weld on a couple of fender eyelets on the rear of the fork tubes and fabricate a tubular fender brace around the back of the tire. Another piece of tubing would be bent into a radius matching the front tire, and this piece would be bolted to the fork at the fork crown pivot bolt hole. So now you have a lightweight three-point mount for the stand. The old-style spring clip seems crude, plus it hangs down. How about using one of the very strong "Industrial Magnets" mounted to the three -point mount, and the steel stand would just be held up by the magnet?
Last item would be to lose the basket supports. Make a new pair out of light aluminum angle. If you really want to keep the vintage look, they could be faux painted, instead of polished, or left mill finish.
Just some ideas.
John
sworley
I live for the CABE
I wasn’t super jazzed about that bar/stem combo but it’s what I had. Last weekend this Salsa stem came up cheap on eBay and I had these S&M bars, all I needed was a 22.2 to 25.4 shim to make them work. Much better. Added a chain and it was fun to ride this again! I do think I’ll add v brakes, I’m going to pull off the Deores from the 1x1 and upgrade the 1x1 to vintage XTR units.
