Hello and Welcome, I was recently contacted by one of my best customers and face book friends Laura about restoring her dads old Schwinn road bike. I was told they thought the fork might have been bent and she wanted to know if I could repair and possibly restore it. Of course I said sure no problem. I was expecting a Continental or Varsity or possibly a La Tour.
Above: The Schwinn World Voyageur. At this point I had already cleaned the crank, chain,
front and rear derailleurs and the freewheel. I had also removed the
handlebar tape and padding. Having never seen or heard of the World Voyageur I assumed that Laura's dad had done a bunch of really cool upgrades. I was surprised to see a few other World Voyageurs on the Old Ten speed Gallery that also had all the same cool stuff. I had no idea that Schwinn had ever built a bike this beautiful. The frame alone is amazing by itself. Especially when you are talking about an early to mid 1970's Schwinn. And the light weight
three piece crankset and
bar cons! This is unbelievable.
Above: I was sure that this La Tour rear derailleur (possibly a Huret) was an upgrade, it was not. I did not realize it yet but the wheels are not correct. After a good "on the bike cleaning" of the derailleur and installing fresh
Jag Wire derailleur cables it was time to see if she will go through the gears. At first it only had a three gear range on the rear derailleur. But after re setting the high and low gear limit screws it was shifting fine. The idea in doing this work first was to see if the bike could be made to function properly with the existing components. The
front derailleur was the same story after it was cleaned, lubed and adjusted it worked perfectly. So far So good.
The brakes looked rough and the period correct brake shoes looked like they had been on there for decades. And oddly enough it appeared to have newer brake cables. I could not help but wonder, why did they not replace the shoes as well? Maybe they saw the thickness and thought they must be ok. But we know better, do we not? Brake shoes harden over time and they loose their grip. Not to mention they get really screechy. (noisey) At this point I decided to remove the brake caliper to see how it would clean up. and replace the worn brake shoes with new
Jag Wire X-Caliper Brake Shoes.
Above: The center pull caliper brake taken apart. Everything looks about average except the "caliper arm mounting bolt heads" look like they have some deep rust. And the return springs look pretty bad as well. I cleaned this one up to see if they were worth saving.
Above: Here I have re-mounted the
Center Pull Caliper Brake and have the
cable hanger in place and I am pulling the slack out of the main cable. I use the quick clamp to hold the caliper shut while I pull out the slack and tighten the cable anchor with the 3 way. I am holding the cable taut by clamping on with needle nose pliers. Just before tightening down the anchor I will turn the pliers to make sure the cable remains taut during tightening. Afterwards I tightened the anchor using two open-end box wrenches. Also if you look in the top right corner of the pic, you see the barrel adjuster for this caliper. Notice that the barrel adjuster is screwed all the way down. This way I have room for adjustment down the road when the cable stretches or the brake shoe wears down a bit. Imagine if you will that my right hand is holding the
pliers and my left is ready to turn the three way. But as usual I am actually holding the camera in my right hand. lol
Above: On a scale of 1 to 10 this caliper restoration is about a 5 or 6 tops. At this point I am looking at this as more of a mechanical restoration than a cosmetic one. To properly restore this caliper to about a 9 I would first replace the caliper arm bolts. (due to rust-through and pitting) And the same for the return springs. Also all the alloy parts would be wheel brushed to a sheen with a
fine brass wheel brush then polished. And the
straddle cable would be replaced with a new one.
Above: Here I have done some (fine brass) wheel brushing on the lugs to see if the rust is all the way through. It is too deep to be saved. I found the same problem with the fork tips and the bracket /cable guide on the front. The same holds true for many other parts of the bike. Maybe in another 60 years this bike would be worth this much restoration but right now it would be pointless. This is the point where I decided this would be a "mechanical restoration" only. Not to say I will not clean it up a bit, of course I will try to make it presentable. Maybe "Ridden Hard but Well Cared For" would be a better description of the look I am going for here. Unfortunately, that will soon change as well.
Above: This
Shimano Dura Ace crank is fantastic! At this point I had only cleaned it up on the bike. I was just trying to get the drive train functional, which I did. But I was not quite ready to get into the
bottom bracket or
threaded headset just yet. As it turned out I was right to be cautious.
Above: Here I have removed the caliper
front caliper brake and front wheel. At this point I decided to clean up the frame some more. Notice this side of the headset does not look to awful.
Above: As I am wiping down the frame around the down tube on the left side the paint is literally falling off in a semi circle (C) around the down tube just south of the lug tip (A) connection. This is a real bad indicator that the frame is stressed at this point. Feeling around underneath the down tube I can feel where it buckled or caved in forming a dent (B&D) I can also feel a slight ridge where the tube swelled from being stressed. This is a real deal breaker especially for a bike in this condition. I will try to explain what I think happened.
Above: When the bike was struck, the force destroyed the original front wheel. The force of the impact put enough force on the fork that it acted upon the head-tube like a lever. The head tube exerted enough force on the down tube that it buckled under the pressure. This is what caused the dent (Stress Point 1) on the underside of the down tube just south of the head-tube. This same force (like a lever) put enough pressure upwards pushing the upper part of the head tube in the opposite direction or forward. This pulled upward on the front of the top tube just behind the head tube. This caused stress point two right at the point behind where the lug is brazed to the top tube. The force literally pulled the on the upper front of the to tube so hard it stressed. That big red arrow at the top shows exactly where the force would have been applied. And the missing paint shows that is exactly where the frame stressed or bulged. A simpler way of saying it would be, The same force that pushed the lower end of head tube inwards, levered the upper end of the head tube outwards. So the down tube was stressed on the underside and the top tube stressed on the top side.
Above: This is where this project came to an end with the front brake caliper rebuilt sitting on the table. I`m out a couple of derailleur cables a full can of
White Lightning Clean Streak about a 1/2 roll of paper towels. And also a few hours labor. Well now that it does shift and the rear brake is hooked up I just had to ride this mess and see how it felt. It was the oddest feeling bike I have ever ridden. It felt like it was dog tracking (the front and rear wheels are not in line) And you could tell the geometry of the front end had been disturbed it just felt out of the norm. And I also noticed the left pedal felt bent, so I swapped pedals and tried it again. The left pedal still was not right. Now I am sure the left crank arm is bent as well. And that is (was) a damn fine crank-set. Maybe I`ll find a left side arm for it someday.
I informed the customer "Laura" of the frame damage and told her it would be better if I cut my losses now and just stopped the restoration. She agreed and offered me the bike for parts. It still has some really cool stuff like the bar cons and the front and rear derailleurs and 1/2 of a really good crank-set. And the
handlebars are cool but might be slightly bent, really not sure yet. So I am giving her 50.00 for the bike. Which is probably stupid for reasons I won't get into here. Oh well another lesson learned. Go over every square inch of the bike twice "before" you do anything.
Above: The upside to this disaster is I can finally get back to the Raleigh Sports. And even better I am finally putting the finishing touches on the Parliament. Above: I decided to go ahead and paint the fork legs or blades white on the Parliament leaving the
fork crown the original green. I am very pleased with the results, but I do have to give the paint 48 hours to cure before reassembling the front end of the Parliament. It is sold and hopefully we be going to it`s new home Monday.
Above: Today I was able to spray the
Flat Black Rust-Oleum Enamel Primer on the Raleigh Sports frame. I am using black primer because I will be painting it the same black enamel that I painted Brian's Raleigh Sprite. I will also be doing the same gold detail around the lugs. Just for the sake of doing something different, I probably will do the rear fender tip white. (as stock) After I get the frame and fork painted I will start working on the
bicycle fenders (mud guards) and chain guard. I want to get the fork back on the frame a.s.a.p. so I can see if my possible replacement front fender will work.
Above: There was so much painting and priming going on today, that I was running out of places to put the freshly primed and painted pieces. So I had to get creative. This looked like a good place to park the freshly primed fork for the evening. It is out of my way and somewhere where it will not get knocked over or disturbed.
Above: To keep the primer and paint out of the chrome "thimble like" detail on the upper fork blades I just used a piece of
Scotch Blue painters tape and trimmed off the excess with a
X Acto Knife.
Above: The fork wet sanded and cleaned with mineral spirits. Then all the chrome taped off and it is ready to spray. That is all I have for now. Until Next Time Please RIDE SAFE and Remember to Always...... RESCUE, RESTORE & RECYCLE! Cheers, Hugh
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