Fresh Find: 1980 Cook Brothers Three Bar Cruiser

[Guest2]

That is sick as Hell!

 

[sworley]

Thanks for the kind words, @Dizzle Problems and @Lonestar, appreciated!

 

[Guest2]

Thanks for the kind words, @Dizzle Problems and @Lonestar, appreciated!

Thanks for posting it...what a beauty

 

[birdzgarage]

That looks really nice. Your definitely doing it justice.

 

[sworley]

Thanks!
It was a good mail day today. The rear hub was a Christmas gift from a good friend last year and the front hub took 7 months of very frequently hitting refresh on eBay and BMXmuseum classifieds, haha! The ad was up for three minutes when I had to snipe it with that trigger finger! It came via a complete 24” wheelset but I finally got one and thankfully it’s a third-gen like my rear hub. Bummer they’re not period correct for my ‘80 but oh well.

I plan to unlace the Sunshine hubs and re-lace th to the spokes and rims that came with the bike.

 

[Billythekid]

Hey man bike looks great think about it this way not everyone bought all there parts at the same time “the hubs could have been put on a few years after the frame set was bought “atleast the hubs aren’t earlier then the frame set

 

[sworley]

Hey man bike looks great think about it this way not everyone bought all there parts at the same time “the hubs could have been put on a few years after the frame set was bought “atleast the hubs aren’t earlier then the frame set

Yeah, good point. I'm a stickler for factory-correct and period-correct but these were pretty much all sold as framesets, not completes. So there's not really a "correct" build to follow. This is good and bad but sometimes drives me crazy overthinking it, haha!

 

[ozzie]

Nice work on a killer bike. You can probably hot rod that Bendix coaster by replacing the caged balls on the drive side with loose balls and adding a few extra as well. I have done it to many Shimano cb-e110 hubs which I believe was cloned from the Bendix.

 

[sworley]

More progress. Tore down the original rear wheel to lace the Cook rear hub and installed new SR-8 bearings in the front hub. I’m hoping the spokes are the right length to re-use.

I was going to convert the front hub to a solid axle but the ID/OD of the bearing/hub shell is actually different from the solid axle rear. Bummer, few things look worse than a QR axle on a vintage cruiser. Oh well. Was advised against improvising a different bearing/axle by the Cook Bros. Godfather so here it is.

 

[Billythekid]

When you get it in your final stage you should bring it back by the old owner and get another picture together with it. Just a thought it was part of her life for a long time I’m sure she would love to see it all fixed up continuing it’s journey