46 Dixie Flyer

[the tinker]

@the tinker I don't mean to hijack your thread, but thought this was worth showing. Although mine is a Dayton badge, it's essentially the same bike.
I don't know if mine's an oddball or what, it has the post war style seat clamp. But what's throwing me off is I've never seen any post war bike with a long tank.
I did look at the link posted by @Scribble and his has the same tank, but it's not original to the bike. @Ridemore also has the same tank, on a prewar bike.
I'm wondering if anybody has seen a post war, original paint bike, with an original paint long tank?
Is it possible they switched to the seat clamp just prior to WWII?

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Awesome bike Jay. Were you going to try Oxalic acid on that one? That's a rider as is. I like it! If you don't get any answers to your post, I recall what the late John Polizzi once told me. Just before the war in 41 Schwinn used up frames they still had that were made in 1934. He said after the war, everybody did the same thing. Manufacturers and the people that ran the assembly plants were't like the tax write-off, litigation minded people of today. We were fresh out of the depression. If it was scrap, it went to the war effort. If it could be used in the production line, it was put to use. It has to be remembered there was a shortage of bicycles and parts after the war. Your bike may be one of these.
Whatever it is, it's a nice one.

 

[Jay81]

Thank you. So you think it may be a post war frame, and they used a leftover prewar tank on it? I've heard of bike companies doing stuff like that but never owned one myself. (maybe I do now)
I did take it all apart, OA bath and also some 0000 steel wool with wd40 for the stubborn stuff. I took your advice and didn't leave it in the OA too long, but I may not have made it strong enough. I serviced the bearings and hubs, and today I installed a set of black chain treads from John. It's pretty much done now and back together, just waiting on grips and I have the pedals soaking in Evaporust. I'll take some "after" pictures once it's all done and post them in the thread I started for the bike.