Okay, sorry for the lack of updates. After realizing that there was no way I'd get the bike done by October 30th, I decided I needed a short break to try to calm down and relax before I continued working more on this Schwinn. Between that and starting a new job that sadly didn't work out, it wasn't until just earlier this week that I got around to copying and editing the progress photos and videos from last Friday. Here's how it all went down, to the best of my memory:
First thing I did Friday was run all the way up to my dad's shop in Sapulpa to pick up the handlebars and fork parts I had clear coated earlier that week. Once I did that, I ran to Wal-Mart for my chain... only to find that that particular store didn't have any in stock. So I had to spend more time on the road driving to another Wal-Mart that was further away from home to get my chain. Fortunately, I got my chain for just under $10 (before tax,) and I was on my way home.
Once home, I began reassembling the Hornet. First, I installed the bearing cups and seat clamp.
I tried my best to get the "Schwinn" scripts on the bottom bracket bearing cups to sit level with the frame. It's the little things...
Next, I installed the bottom bracket assembly.
Then the seat...
I decided to reassemble my rat trap springer fork next. One minor catch though: I needed a shim to fit the Schwinn race to the Murray fork. So, I hopped on
Shoestring and rode out to one of the main roads surrounding the neighborhood to look for supplies. Now, sure, I could've just walked over to one of my neighbors and asked if they had any empty soda cans I could use, but I wanted to help tidy up the neighborhood, at least a little bit. Luckily, I found plenty of aluminum cans dotting the side of the road, so I did the responsible thing and picked up a few of those
irresponsibly-discarded aluminum cylinders to bring back home, where they'd be
properly recycled.
Much better.
Once Dad came home, he helped me get the rest of the fork assembled. I'm surprised how smoothly that went for my first try ever putting one of these forks back together.
I put the fork on the bike, and ran into the same issue I had when building
Shoestring: there was a small but sizable gap between the crown race and the bearing cup. This was puzzling, since the bearing cups, bearings, and crown race are all genuine Schwinn parts. I tried digging though my collection of other crown races I had at home, and yet I still couldn't close that gap. I still felt that if nothing else went wrong, I could just let that gap slide, but that's not how it would pan out...
After fighting with the coaster brake for what felt like hours, I got that all reassembled. I plopped on the back wheel, trimmed my chain to length, and that's when this project came to a screeching, grinding, sticky halt. First, while I did get both the chainring and sprocket to line up correctly so the chain would spin correctly, I had flipped the sprockets to face out, instead of facing in. I think I did this mostly to clear the tire, as it's a 2.35" wide tire, but I'm trying to remember if the chainring looked like it'd hit the frame if I had it flipped the usual way. Either way, with the chainring and sprocket facing out, I could not get the chain guard to go back on the frame without the chain scraping against the chain guard. If that was where the problems ended, then I'd just leave the chain guard off, but there was a bigger issue going on inside the coaster brake hub...
Not only does the coaster brake hub not sound too happy, but at lower speeds, it's catching on something that stops it from freewheeling. Take a look at
the videos I posted on ratrodbikes.com and see what I mean.
I'm not sure what went wrong when I reassembled the coaster brake hub, but it was a huge pain in the rear to put back together, given that the cone nut that was supposed to come loose
didn't, so I basically had to reassemble this whole thing backwards. I would not be surprised if that played a part in the hub not acting right. Either way, I didn't want to risk destroying the hub. At this point, it was already late at night, and I only had one more day before the 30th to finish this bike. On top of that, it was going to rain the next day, and right around when that bike ride supposedly happened, so it would be highly unlikely I'd get to test-ride the bike, even if I somehow corrected all the issues I ran into by the end of Saturday. And to top it all off, I had a job that I was starting on Halloween, so I needed to get ready for that. With all that in mind, I had to face the music and throw in the towel until I could properly sort out this mess.