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49 Columbia with hard pull to right

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ALL of the faults you mentioned matter. I don't believe there is any simple fix.

It can seem like black magic. I bought a Schwinn in 1976 that was badly wrecked (and subject to all sorts of other atrocities, but that is beside the point). Just straightening the frame and forks so they seemed to be straight and look good didn't do a damn thing. I made more attempts to fix it over the years, doing a lot every time I painted it, and little stuff in-between when I just got sick of the fact that it wouldn't go straight. It still pushed left when you sat on it when I parked it in about 1981. It didn't get completely fixed til 2020 and at that point hadn't been ridden at all in years.

It certainly helps that you have tools. I didn't and don't. Start with the wheels and the frame. Fix the wheel dishing. Get it perfect. Then work on the front triangle. You'll probably screw it up again while fixing the rear triangle, but you have to start somewhere and maybe there won't be too much to re-correct. When you have an obvious misweld like what you describe, you'll have to get that headtube where it belongs. I guess that means the top tube and downtube will run at a slight angle right/left. Oh well. Check the bottom bracket to see if it is square to the seat tube. That might affect what you need to bend.

The hardest thing to fix is that up/down error at the back. It's never gonna run straight with a wheel tipped. To check I have long straight threaded rods to sight it. I'd probably use one in the front too under normal conditions, but since your fork is bent.... and it still is, because it pushed when you mounted it on another frame, I think you need to bolt something in the back, get the seat tube vertical with a level, and see how far out of level the "axle" is. On some bikes there is a flat spot on the rear forks and you can just lay the level there. Then, you'll also need to bolt it to something to push up/down on the rear forks and stays. You basically twist. A frame has a lot of strength up/down here, and it keeps wanting to go back where it was as you correct other problems. Ugh. if you want to to go straight it has to be done. Then you are going to have to make the rear forks square to each other and at the same time, and the correct O.L.D., and the whole thing aimed straight at the headtube. I use bolts with the heads aimed at each other, and Sheldon Brown's string trick to get the rear triangle aimed. I imagine you have real tools for that.

Then you get to do it all again a couple of times because it wasn't as straight as you thought, or the rear triangle slipped a little back toward the wrong angle it was originally welded to while you were bending other things.

Your fork is still bent. It wouldn't be pushing like that in another frame if it wasn't. Side to side is not the only thing to correct. The fork blades may have different curves. Clamp it backside down to a mill table or a tablesaw or something, put an axle in it, or better yet a long threaded rod. Measure up from the table to see if one side is higher. Correct as necessary. Also put some blocks under it to raise it a little so you can get the crown and everything on the table, and sight the fork tube to see if it is bent. A correctly dished wheel (to within a gnats ass) with no tire on it will show you side to side. Forks are hard to get right. There are people you can just send them to, but I typically just slog through it. I wish I had a fork jig. Also see my Huffy thread.
 
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The fork was fine in the other frame, but the other bike's fork still pulled in this frame.

By the headtube being off the left like it is, its effectively putting the tubes off to the right, when the fork in in the frame, the only things that matter is the caster angle and centerline, which effectively becomes the straight line between the two fork bladed, down the center of the seat post, and out to the rear.
What this does is make the entire rear triangle act as if its bent to the left side of the bike, thus the bike pulls to the right since the caster angle or 'trail' doesn't match the direction the bike is trying to go in.
The fork is trying to match the angle of the headtube but turning in the direction its pointed in, and the rear
wheel is pushing the bike to the right making the situation feel even worse.

frame top view -3.jpg

Basically the frame jig uses slugs in the BB shell, and it gets bolted down to a slide which can be locked to the table. There are bars and slugs for the headtube as well.
What needs to happen is the two pair of dropouts have to be aligned together.

With the frame in the jig the plan is to pull the high side of the rear down, then I'll push the BB to the left using the center carriage and forcing screw. what it will do is in effect put both wheels in line with the correct caster angle facing forward.
 
I can bend the headtube around into alignment and force the rear triangle in to position but its likely to show in the tubes.
Nearly ever Schwinn lightweight I've ever put on the bench has had a twisted headtube, which makes the front wheel lean left and the rear wheel to the right a bit when riding but the difference is very slight. Usually you can see this just buy looking down across the bare frame lining the headtube up with the seat tube.
I've had a few Varsity 10 speeds, mostly in larger frames, that road terrible because of it but mostly because they would turn harder to one side then the other, but only enough where you noticed it when riding hands free.
I would bend them back into perfect alignment and make the bike feel so much better. I just did a 65 Racer for a guy who was getting ready to do a repaint. It was only off about 1.4 degrees but perfect is always better if its possible.

Some of the older bikes just were never built to this sort of perfection, and they really didn't need to be. Most were built in jigs either by hand on a frame assembly machine. Its highly likely that a few just aren't set into the jig perfectly and get misaligned from time to time, maybe even most of them. They likely just rack them into 'good enough' shape and build the bike. They weren't precision watches, just kids toys to most back then.

I've got a junk ladies JC Higgins in the shed outback, it was my backup bike in the 60's for my newspaper route. It was hit by car before I got it, the fork is off an old Colson, I straightened it back then with a 5 lb sledge hammer and a torch. The forks are forged, the originals were tubular), but one got bent outward one day when my brother borrowed it, he got a flat, didn't tighten the front wheel enough, and the left side slid out of the drops, when he landed, the wheel came back, then the bike went over bending the tip of the fork in a 90 degree bend outward on one side. I heated it up, hammered it back in place as best I could and since that side was now a bit shorter, I filed out the left dropout a bit more to center the wheel The fender was trashed so it never went back on. The bars are welded because the stem bolt broke off, they were also straightened and one side was cut off and a left side was welded back in with a piece of water pipe for a sleeve.

Its got two different rims, the front wheel is an old Lobdell rim that's been brush painted green, the frame was painted red with a brush long before I got it and its faded to pink, and the back wheel is off a newer Huffy cruiser with an old Allstate tire. the back fender is off a rusty old Workman warehouse bike and is painted black with a rattle can to stop the rust. Its got a pair of saddle baskets and a huge front basket. Its still got its orignal slip link chain, made to work by welding an old ND sprocket with the center torched out over the Shimano rear sprocket.

In other words its a total mess, but it rides just fine, the bearings are all good, it don't pull and it stops most of the time if your lucky. The tires even hold air for almost a full day. My dad pulled it out of a dumpster somewhere in NY state while driving a truck one day back around 1967 or so. We beat it half to death a dozen times as kids and its been to the bottom of the swimming hole more than a dozen times, jumped off every ramp like thing we ever found, including the fallen down roof of an old chicken coop that used to be back in the woods then, it was like a long asphalt roller coaster ride that ended in a 15ft flying leap into a trail through about 20ft or so of fine sugar sand. A lot of bikes died there, I welded a lot of frames back together too back in the day. It was before BMX so we beat up the old bikes that we got cheap then.

So when I get on this Columbia and its so bad, but really don't look all that bad or out of shape, it makes me want to figure it out more.

The thought about one fork blade being too far back is spot on, that will cause a pull, but this fork is good. In facts I've tweaked it into perfection o the FT-4.

What I'm thinking is that since the rear wheel sits off to one side, the pull is partially coming from the rear of the bike trying to effectively turn to the right while the front wheel faces inline with the frame, the turn right is thus changing the center line of the bike then making the angle of the headtube wrong in relationship to the direction the rear wheel is pointed. Thus the more weight, the greater the caster effect.
What I think I'm going to try is to pull the rear over till the wheel, which I'll redish as it should be, faces the center line of the bike.

In other words, buy forcing the upper triangle over to match the chainstays to force the rear wheel to align property regardless of the funky weld to the upper frame, it should force the front wheel which since it can steer, to not try and roll to the right. It should put the head tube in line with the rear axle on all planes reagardless of where or how miswelded the head tube is.
Wow! Do you have any pictures of the Higgins?
 
Since it is a family keepsake, how about hanging it on the wall and tackling an easier project, like reversing global warming?

If you know you want to continue until the thing is perfect, or find a tweak that fixes the pull even though dimensions are still screwed up, how about putting some new tires on it? It would be surprising if that helps, but you'll want to do that anyway, for safety.

If the front wheel turns right when you sit on it, when riding that makes the bike want to turn left, correct?
 
I don't think I have an pics. Right now its pretty buried in the tool shed outback, behind a tractor and about five rototillers, mowers, and various other old equipment from years ago. One of these days if I feel ambitious maybe I'll pull all that stuff out and organize it all somehow. I forget why it stopped getting used, I seem to remember there being a problem with the back wheel rubbing or something. Its been out there for decades. Dad built a new shed closer to the house back in the 80's and the old one just sort of became a place dump things we didn't use anymore or didn't feel like fixing, or couldn't get parts for anymore.
 
Since it is a family keepsake, how about hanging it on the wall and tackling an easier project, like reversing global warming?

If you know you want to continue until the thing is perfect, or find a tweak that fixes the pull even though dimensions are still screwed up, how about putting some new tires on it? It would be surprising if that helps, but you'll want to do that anyway, for safety.

If the front wheel turns right when you sit on it, when riding that makes the bike want to turn left, correct?
The bike wants to turn right all the time, and the more you lean into a right turn the harder it pulls into the turn to the point it wants to just go full right. It feels as if there's a 400lb spring pulling it to the right as soon as I sit on it. No weight, no pull. Turning left is a fight, and it doesn't want to lean and turn left because even in a left turn its trying to turn the wheel right. But a 100lb rider doesn't feel much pull at all.

Its not tires, I put the front wheel and fork on the other frame and it was fine. They're in rough shape but they're not the source of the pull.
The plan is to pull the rear over to the right and maybe pull the headtube to the right a bit too.
With the rear triangle out of line with the head and seat tube, its effectively pointing the rear tire to the right of center all the time, the headtube being off to the left changes the direction of caster, making the bike want to turn right to correct the rear wheel direction. I'm sure there's better terms for it but I'll know if my thinking is right after I get it back on the rack and crank up the pressure on it.

Basically what will happen is I'll anchor the rear dropouts and the headtube to the table, the move the bb and seat post to the left to put the whole frame in line. It will fix the rear wheel position and hopefully aim the caster straight ahead.

I've been waiting a bit to do this because I'm going to getting hold of a different frame table, the one that was in a shop I worked at back in the 70's. It's a factory made table that was the one they copied to make the one I have now.
 
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