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'59 FLGHTLNR

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Sven

Cruisin' on my Bluebird
I picked this '59 J C Higgins Flightliner up outside Richmond for $45 a few months ago ( It was aprt of a Package deal). I know its not the " To die over, must have bike" . And a whole list of parts that aren"t original and missing the front rack.. But I decided to restore it to the best of my abilities. Im retired so I have a good bit of free time.



As I bought it

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I learned , after removing some of the paint, that the bike had stripped down to bear metal and painted over without much body work to fill the many pitted areas or any type of rust treatment.
Aircraft remover made quick business of paint removal. A little Bondo action to fill the pits, primed, Since then the tank was top coated with white primer.

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More body work
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I thought it was neat how the "Flightliner" showed up after stripping / rust treatment / bondo and primed
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This stuff works great, But extreme care and precautions when using it.
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..and the frame and fork stripping are done

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How can one pinpoint the year of these bikes?
That chain guard was only used '58-9, and most are stamped with the Sears catalog # w/the serial, usually in the 4500-4700 range through '62, later models have an extra digit. This bike is interesting, having painted fenders, it must be a base model Flightliner. If it didn't have the name on the guard, I'd have said it was a lower Sportflite model!
 
Well, the tank is finally finished..painted Dupli-color Chevy white over white primer, 4 coats of of clear coat , wet sanded down to a 5000 grit and polished as well as tank stickers applied. Perfect ..not by any means..there is some slight evidence of orange peel around the edges. I didn't want to burn through the finish and have to start over. Next up is the chainguard
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Got a rolling chassis with the front end complete. Waiting for the rear rack's completion( Clear coat the rack and paint the support braces ) to finish the rear section. Soaking a new chain chain in degreaser as to give it the Molten Speed wax treatment.
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learn a good lesson. I thought I was going to slick and use the nice chrome rear rack braces that came with the female sears rack I got of eBay..wrong. Too small. I am gonna strip the black paint off these pitted up ones that came with the bike and use filler primer, gloss black and Krylon "Chrome"
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..and the seat needs padding, Covering with marine grade black vinyl and white piping.
Its gettin' there. Slowly but surely.
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Well its done. There are a few final adjustments to go. The seat didn't turn out all that great. Its covered but , looks like a tick. Not perfect, but not a stick in the eye. Lessons learned, I think the next time , I would have it stripped, painted and striped by a professional paint shop. Or powder coated.
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The Lights were upgraded to a 9 volt system LED.
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Awesome ! That was a lot of work ! Stripping / Sanding/ Painting...................it takes some time and effort. Unless you've done many paint jobs. Paint and pinstriping is hard to do "Correctly" . I learn with each attempt. I bought a bike for VERY LITTLE $ , and there's evidence all over showing that some one was "Practising " their Paint /Pinstriping / Decal Placement Skills. I couldn't pass it up..............and frankly.............would not have done any better myself. Your thoughts on Professional Painting and /or Powder coating are on my mind more often now than ever. Great Post , and thanks for all the photo documentation . ;) You should be very proud of your work. Your bike looks great. :p Here's a few photo's of the Bike I was referring to. :cool:

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