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...
Nice job you're doing here. I've seen that Soma light, so I'd be interested in hearing how well it does. I know that Linus has made something similar, but don't know if they are simply the same light or different.
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I mocked up the Soma tail light, and if I use a conventional clamp, plus the L-bracket that comes with the lamp and the lamp spacer, it should work. The Linus also looks nice. The Soma uses 1 AAA battery whereas the Linus is supposedly rechargeable with a USB cord. My one worry about the linus is that the thin Schwinn seat stays might be too thin for the rubber Linus clamp. I found that even one of those little button-type tail lights had a rubber clamp that was too large for the Schwinn frame.
DeleteThe Soma headlight, it seems to me is a little better made than the Soma tail. But they're both better than the $20 drop-shipped eBay and Amazon stuff. Hopefully it all holds up in the end.
wow
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