Wednesday, May 6, 2009

Old Bike in the Jungle


This is an old bicycle frame that I found in the overgrown jungle out behind an abandoned house here in town. Considering what has happened to the front fork ... I'm not sure that the bike is even restorable.

I'm still hacking away (every so often) on the recumbent SWB that I'm building for some guy ...

I offered to give him back his parts bicycle and forget the whole thing ... but he refused.

So whining and screaming, I periodically drag myself up to the shop and work on it some more.

Today I scrounged up some posts and welded them on to use a V-brake on the front wheel. I had mounted a caliper brake ... but didn't feel comfortable about it's stopping power ... particularly if he decides to mount a motor on this bike (he really wants a motor like mine on his recumbent too). I already had mounted a V-brake setup on the rear wheel. Dang! I think the cable with a few parts I need to use on the V-brake -- just fell down behind my work bench ... I'll have to dig it out tomorrow.

After reading the sparse instructions about steering in the BenTech construction plans ... I dug thru my scrap pile and found a tube to use as an extender between the headset and the handlebars. I slapped a set of bars into place and it almost looks like you can steer it.

Then I started working on the seat stays that run from the back of the seat to the rear dropout. The only problem is that the seat doesn't have a cover. I think I'll take the cover off my good web seat and put it on this bike. Then I'll have to talk someone with a heavy-duty upholstery sewing machine into sewing up another cover for my seat (once I buy some more of that Phifertex fabric).

I'll take fotos of all of this and post them tomorrow.

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