Schwinn Corvette

[supermanotorious]

This bicycle was given to me while in high school by a family member, I was going to make it all pretty but at the time all I did was polish all the chrome. My mom recently sold the house and found the bike in the attic, asked if I wanted it. I was a little reluctant since she had recently unloaded a bunch of other stuff on me.

Aside from all of this, my girl had recently bought a beach cruiser but had to sell to cover some bills. As I was organizing my shed yesterday, I thought, why not put it back together for her to use.

Luckily while in high school, I took great care to individually store and label the parts in a large box.

I started to put the pedal and bearings back into the frame but can not get one of the nuts to thread properly as if the threads are stripped, the strange thing is, I can get the nut to thread backwards and move completely up and down the threads, I stopped there for now.

 

[OzFab]

I can get the nut to thread backwards and move completely up and down the threads, I stopped there for now.

Sounds like there may be a burr on the end of thread in the nut. Have a close look at it

 

[newrider3]

The large cone nut for the bottom bracket on the non-drive side will be reverse thread. As will the left pedal threads.

 

[supermanotorious]

oh am I a special guy, didn't realize these were reverse threads....

 

[supermanotorious]

while I don't intend on selling this bike, I've seen around the web they're worth some $$, I wanted to learn a little more about it, based on the serial number, I found it was made between 3/18 and 3/27 1953! That is so cool since my other new project is the '53 F100, in 2013 I'll have 2 60 year old American made toys!

Today I took the front wheel to a shop to have them properly install and tighten the spokes, once done its time for assembly and cruising.

After the initial thrill of cruising has passed, I'll take her apart again and repaint the frame and stencil the Schwinn logos and artwork back on

 

[crazzywolfie]

thats pretty cool. i got a couple old British folding bikes i wouldn't mind cleaning up but i don't know if i will go too crazy with the clean up until i finish the first 3 speed i started working on. i sandblasted the frame and that was about as far as i got.

 

[supermanotorious]

got this far tonight after picking up the wheel and my new tires were waiting by the door, the shop didn't charge me for truing the wheel because they said it was so beat up no matter how close they got it still had wobble, they were kinda snotty about it so snotty back I said "Well it's 60 years old"

the tires look good and went on fairly easy, I'm having an issue getting the rear wheel aligned as it seems to hang up on one or more spots of the fender no matter what, could be me or maybe the wheel is out of balance

I'm exhausted and its raining a little so I'm calling it quits for the night

 

[crazzywolfie]

it looks good. i can understand why having straight rim is important with fenders and tires so large. truing tires sucks especially when you don't have the proper tools but it suck that the professionals couldn't get it straight.