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...