1964 Schwinn Traveler Project Continues Toward Christmas

 It's hard to believe that we've already reached Christmas 2021. The year has kind of flown by, and the riding season always seems to end too soon for me. But here we are in December and the wintry mix is coming down...

Meanwhile I am continuing to work on this very nice 1964 Schwinn Traveler three speed bike. This project has been a little bit different from usual for me in that I'm working indoors. The plus is obviously heat, electricity, internet, etc. in the work area. The downside is I'll have to carry the bike outside once the time comes to put it on the road. But so far so good in this improvised indoor shop.

 

The bike is coming together nicely. 

 

 The original Schwinn cable housings are grey, though they were kind of a generic thing that Schwinn used on many different color bikes. I think for this black bike with light colored grips that white housing looks fairly nice. 

 

One issue with the bike is that the original upright Sturmey shifter took a beating. I can fix the dent in the face plate (you can disassemble and fix these old shifters), but the paint is faded pretty badly.

Fortunately, I have a nice "upside down" style painted face shifter from the late 1950s on hand. I'll use this better and somewhat earlier shifter on the bike. I think it goes pretty well with this project.

I originally intended to use the original Union chain, but the old chain seemed to cause trouble with rear wheel spacing in the dropout (front/back spacing, that is). I have put on a new SRAM PC-1 nickel plated chain, which looks nice on the bike and provides very nicely center rear wheel spacing.

So far so good... 

I still need to make a shifter cable. You have two basic choices today - you can use a generic shifter cable with a pinch bolt mount at the back, or you can make a fixed-length cable similar to the original if you have the correct tool (a Bell Systems cable crimper and hobby brass tubing stock). I'll probably go with the fixed length to provide a nice, period correct look. The housing for that will also be white.

 

May Santa bring you a mint, 70 year old bicycle of your choice... 

or at least some new tires... 

and maybe some brake cables.

Wishing everyone a Merry Christmas! 

 

1964 Schwinn Traveler - Union Chain Made in W. Germany

One thing I normally replace on older bikes is the chain. I don't like taking chances on worn chains, chains that may be harboring cracked links, damaged chains that might wear the drive train prematurely, etc. 

But this 1964 Traveler has low mileage apparently, and the Union-made West German chain is still quite nice. 

 

The bluing is still strong and it doesn't have any really substantial rust on it. It feels pretty good - not too loose and not too worn. 

 

I think I will re-use it on this bike. I have a few sections of other Union chains like this around, chains that aren't as nice but which have a few nice sections to them. I'll need to lengthen the chain a bit to go with the larger 22-tooth rear cog, so I'll splice in a section of good links from another Union chain, and I should have a pretty good, original chain to run.

Tail Light Clamps for Schwinn 3-Speeds

I decided to make a couple stainless steel clamps for tail lights on Schwinn 3-speed type bikes. The seat stays on the Schwinn 3-speeds are a relatively thin tube that comes to a blunt, round end at the top. I have a few, older clamps around to mount tail lights, such as the Soma Silver Bullet, to these stays, but I thought I'd try my hand at making a couple of new tail light clamps as well.

So what I did was buy a couple of the very large type hose clamps from Home Depot, the kind where a significant section is solid stainless rather than mesh. I clipped out a portion of the solid section, then bent it to shape using a dowel a little smaller than the seat stay as well as a small hobby vise. I then drilled screw holes, final shaped the clamp using a Dremel stone, and polished using Simichrome paste a Dremel felt drum.

 

The result is not bad - a shiny stainless steel clamp made to hold a tail light to a Schwinn 3-speed frame. I am not sure yet which bike I will use the two clamps I made on, but I will take a closer look this spring when the riding season restarts. I may also use one on the 1964 Schwinn Traveler project, though I did have a commercial clamp ready to go for that. We will see, I guess.

1964 Schwinn Traveler 3-Speed Project Continues

 The cold weather has finally set in, with a little snow every couple of mornings, and temperatures well below freezing at night. The daytime is chilly and windy for the most part. But that's all part of this time of year. Hopefully some good skiing on the horizon this winter though!

The 1964 Schwinn Traveler 3-Speed project rolls on in my shop. I've made a little shop for myself in the upstairs of my house, and keep supplies for repairs in the basement. It's not enough to do more than one bike at a time, but it's certainly a lot warmer than the unheated garage. 

 

 

The Traveler frame, fork, headset, calipers, fenders with braces, bottom bracket set, and seat post clamp are back on the bike. Everything there looks really, really nice. I'm glad I managed to get ahold of one of these bikes in such good shape. Usually they're utilitarian items that take kind of a beating.

 

 I've added a new-old-stock Schwinn headlight arm to the headset. It goes great with the rest of the bike. But as for the lighting, I'm going to try a set of retro LED lights made by Soma Fabrications. These are not cheap, but I can say that they're a cut above the $20 bargain basement type LED conversion lights you see on Amazon or eBay. These soma lights are definitely better-made, and I think they'll look great on the bike. The headlight is the Torpedo Mk.2, and the tail light will be the Silver Bullet model. These run on AAA batteries and do not require a bottle generator or a dynohub.

This bike also came with a nice set of Weinmann brake pad holders. These are the type you can refill, so I bought a new set of basic black Kool Stop 6-dot pads and slid them in. The fit is definitely snug, but warming the pad dovetail just a bit, they went in fine.

Kool Stop Pads in old holders

 

The Traveler hit a snag in that the front rim has a flat spot and will not get anywhere close to length-wise trueness. Another telltale sign of trouble is that in order to get side-to-side trueness, I have to max out the spoke tension on one side and minimize it on the other in a couple areas of the rim. These are never good signs. It's kind of strange too because the bike is in such great condition overall. I wonder if the troublesome rim sidelined the bike and helped keep its mileage low over the years. 

Thankfully I have a spare rim and front wheel ready to go. It's from a 1962 Schwinn Traveler, which means it's almost identical to the original. The rear wheel from the '64 seems a bit better, so I'm going with that one, though I have yet another spare around if I need it. We will see, I guess. This is to say, keep a good stock of spare parts handy! They may save you one day...

Schwinn Traveler Grips

 These Schwinn grips cleaned up nicely. I used a combination of Mr. Clean Magic Eraser and water, followed by John Deere Ultraguard. I recommend the Ultraguard especially if you like to preserve old rubber parts. I much prefer it over Armorall and similar.

They have that classic 1960's Schwinn look.

1964 Schwinn Traveler

 Cleaning up the frame for the 1964 Schwinn Traveler project... 

The seat tube transfer has aged some, but is still quite nice!

Schwinn Large Cap Bow Pedals - 1964 Traveler

By the 1960s, Schwinn was moving away from traditional, US-made Torrington pedals for many of its bikes, and going with Schwinn Approved pedals from Germany. Among these were the Union waffle block pedals, and the rounded "bow" type pedals.

 

These pedals came in several varieties, with later bow pedals being unable to be disassembled, and earlier ones like these "large cap" bow pedals being something you can take apart and service.

So that's what I did this afternoon. The large dust cap with the Schwinn logo on it "pops" off. I used a pair of needle nose pliers like a bottle opener, getting the jaws under the ridge in the cap and levering the cap off.

After that, it's a fairly conventional pedal: lock nut, keyed spacer, and cone are removed. 

Outer bearings are removed individually with the needle nose pliers. Then the pedal is removed from the vise, and the inner bearings dumped into a little pan.

All bearings and surfaces are degreased and cleaned. The rubbers are also cleaned. The rubbers and frame I kept together and did not need to disassemble the pad/frame assembly.

Then everything is greased with Lucas green lithium grease and re-assembled.  The bearings and surfaces look good.

And so the final product is an attractive, functional set of pedals. I don't consider these to be of extraordinarily good quality, but they're like the old waffle block pedals: serviceable and functional.

Happy Thanksgiving

 There is a great deal for which to be thankful this year - family, friends, business, good bike projects. The bike season here is over, but the holiday season is ramping up and it's a nice time of the year.

So without further delay... a deep fried Thanksgiving turkey. 

17-pound fresh turkey (don't try frying the frozen ones!)

3 gallons of oil at 350 deg F

62 min cook time

Tastes great!

 

 Happy Thanksgiving

Cleaning Brightwork - Aluminum and Chromed Parts for 1964 Schwinn Traveler

Cold weather has arrived and will be here for a day or two yet. So that means indoor time cleaning and prepping parts for the 1964 Schwinn Traveler project. 

The parts on this Traveler are surprisingly nice and original. The red dot Weinmann brake levers polished up very bright, and the the stem and handlebars came out great. 

 

I use a copper bristle brush or bronze wool to remove light surface rust, along with a dose of WD-40 or similar rust remover. I then clean with acetone, and follow-up with polishing using Simichrome polish. I then take another acetone rag and remove the polish residue. 

 

The result is clean and shiny bright parts. Schwinn used quality chrome plating in this period, and the Weinmann alloy parts are in good shape (and lightweight to boot).

 

New Project: 1964 Schwinn Traveler 3-Speed

  I recently purchased a 1964 Schwinn Traveler three-speed from an online auction. This particular bike appears to have gotten very few miles, still having its original tires, handlebar grips, and brake pads. Here is the seller's photo of the bike, before any work has been done:

 

 I was drawn to this project because of its completeness, good originality, and the fact that it is one of the last three speed Schwinns with the "classic" post-war Traveler features: stainless steel shark fin fenders, extra long chrome and paint chainguard, reverse color handgrips, etc. Someone added safety reflectors to the wheels, but this is not a permanent change. 

Overall, I am optimistic about this one. The bike is now in pieces in my shop undergoing cleaning and re-building.

 One place to check for mileage, neglect, or abuse is the bearing surfaces. This includes the bearing balls, the cones, and the cups in the various high-wear joints. Inspecting this project, the bearing surfaces in this 9/1964 hub are quite smooth still, with relatively low wear. The drive train parts - cog and sprocket also show very limited wear. Bearing balls are all clean, smooth, and shiny. There is a little gunk around the edges, but it will clean up fine.

 

Another place to look for abuse and neglect is the wheel rim. Abused rims will tend to show dings, distortions, and other structure damage. Neglected rims tend to rust, especially on the inside around where the eyelets. In this case, the rim is very clean. The spokes also retain their grey coating and none appear to be badly bent, rusted, or broken. These are all good signs.

 

 One final word about "out-of-the-box rides". What I mean here is when someone immediately assembles an old bike found in the wild, from the shipping box, and then rides it without additional work. An alternative situation is when someone finds a bike at the thrift shop, yard sale, garage sale, and immediately starts riding it in a significant way (more than just a short test ride). 

Do not give in to the temptation to just start riding the bike a lot. If there's old sand or grit, or there is incipient damage, it will get worse if you just start riding the bike without tear-down, cleaning, and re-lubrication. A short test ride is fine, but don't take an "in the wild" bike and just start riding it a lot. If you absolutely must just ride the bike and not work on it, buy from a hobbyist or shop that has gone over the bike already.

I'll close with something more positive. I thought I would focus for a moment on one of the parts about these old Schwinns I really like: the "Schwinn Approved" Weinmann 810 brake calipers. These calipers are generally plentiful, and parts are widely available on the secondary market. They are reasonably light for a 1950s-60s era caliper, and they tend to be pretty reliable. They're not the strongest or lightest calipers, but they are pretty good for the time period in which they were made.

Below is a "before and after" sort of shot. The caliper on the left is from this project, but has not been cleaned, greased, and polished yet. The caliper on the right has been gone over. These calipers function well and also are quite handsome, especially once they are cleaned and polished.