New Summer Project

Well, since Shanna and I still don’t have a TV, I am forced to find things to occupy my time after I get home from work in the evenings.  Until about 6:30 or so, I think it has become my job to entertain and feed Calvin because Shanna does that all day.  After he goes to bed though, I have a few hours where I can sit around or do something. 

We found some old rusted bikes here at the place we’re staying, and I pulled a few into the garage to see how much work they would need to fix.  They are the really cool old Schwinn cruiser style bikes.  Both are very cool.  I was going to fix up this one.

However, as I tried to take it all apart, I ran into some difficulty because a rusty bolt head broke off while the bolt was still in the hole.  I tried to drill it out, but to no avail.  Actually, I may know how to fix it now, but I’ve moved on to another bike.

The one I’m going to fix now is pictured below.

This is a pretty old Schwinn Black Phantom.  It’s got a really cool front suspension with shock absorber, a front fender with a switch on light (which may or may not work right now), a sweet chain guard, and a really cool curvaceous frame.  Here’s a better picture of the frame’s curves.

It’s missing some parts because it’s supposed to look like this.

You will notice that the one I found is missing the tank on the frame, the light cover, the seat, the chain, and the wheels(It’s actually only missing the front wheel).

Anyway, right now it’s just a hunk of rust, so I’ve been removing the rust and trying to get the bike all taken apart, which I finally succeeded in doing this evening.  Believe it or not, I had it all disassembled before today except for the part shown below.

This part holds the handlebar stem on to the front fork.  Unfortunately, this morning when I tried to take it off, it was rusted to the headset.  I pulled and hammered on the bike trying to get it off, but to no avail.  Of course I didn’t want to break anything though, so I was trying to be careful and forceful at the same time.

I read all of the information I could online about getting it out and tried the advice.  I went to a bike shop and asked one of the old mechanics how to get an old Schwinn stem out of the headset.  He said to use some Liquid Wrench which would penetrate the rust and allow me to get it loose. I don’t have any of that, so I used vinegar instead, which I read would work.  I also posted on a bike website asking for help.  Someone gave me a pointer and it worked like a charm.  5 hours after the vinegar was applied, I twisted the parts apart(And the tip I got online said I would need to wait overnight).

So anyway.  Hopefully by the end of the summer I have a cool old cruising bicycle that I can ride around Provo in the fall.  I hope you all have been following the Tour de France that started last week.  Armstrong is around 19th place, and Schleck is around 5th I think.