If you are trying to determine the genealogy of your bicycle by it's features, go to our Vintage Bicycle Price Guide
which details bicycle features, wheel sizes, brake types, etc., as well as showing a price estimate for your old bicycle.
If you are trying to determine the make and model of your bicycle, go to our Vintage Bicycle Picture Database
which details bicycle features, wheel sizes, etc., as well as showing a price estimate for your vintage bicycle.
| hello, I have aquired an indian princess bicycle frame and forks and I am interested in restoring the bike to original, but I am having alot of trouble finding parts or anyone that knows anything about these bikes. Any info that anyone can give (books, websites, shops, ect) would be greatly appreciated. thank you |
| i have a complete indian princess bicycle if you would like to talk about it |
| The bike is all rusted and the chain guard is destroyed completely. I would like to restore it as best as possible but I need to find a chain guard for it. Plus I have no clue how to even begin this project. Any information would be greatly appreicated. Thanks, Caleb |
| hello. i have a 1963 schwinn corvette. the frame is in good shape and i want to turn it into a beach cruiser, but i am broke and dont want to replace very many parts. the mechanics are in great shape and everything is running smooothly, but the fenders were covered in rust on the inside, and i brushed it all away with a scotch pad. is there a way to prevent the rust from coming back? could i apply an undercoat? i dont want to change the original parts very much but dont want all my hard work to be in vain. any help is appreciated. |
| For the underside, apply a thin coat of grease. You can wipe all of the chrome with an oily rag ocasionally to prevent rust. |
| I am refurbishing a vintage girls sting-ray and can't figure out how to take off the forks? Also, how do you remove the crank case? |
| Hi Shannon,This can be a very simple task or a real pain.Remove the handlebars to make it easier to work.otherwise they just seem to get in the way but you dont have to if you dont want to,you will see a long bolt going down from the gooseneck,to the fork.remove this bolt,,next remove the large chrome nut,that the gooseneck goes through.If you can put the forks in a vice ,padded so you dont damage them ,work the gooseneck back and forth,holding the forks still and wiggle it out.note the way the bearings go back together for re assembly.Inside the forktube will be a odd shaped nut a cylinder with a 60 degree slash on one end ,note this as well for re assembly.If the internals are rusted up,and nothing will budge.start out by spraying penetrating oil rust buster or any one of a dozen products available and letting it soak adding a few sprays a day untill it finally becomes free.if your keeping the paint job,be carefull with the rust remover,may damage the paint, takes time ,dont be in a big hurry, Crank is easy as well remove pedals.one of em will have left hand threads,turn it oppisite of normal to unscrew,remove large nut on gear side, after nut removed.gear will come off of the pin,note bearings for re assembly crank will slip out the other side of the crank hanger tube,very simple. |
| Sorry i miss wrote the large nut opisite of the gear on the crank but im sure since there is no nut on the gear side you would have figured it out..(but i hate making mistakes sorry) good luck e mail if any ?? |
| Hello everyone, I have a 26in rim, and a new hub that I would like to lace into the rim, but the spokes are too long, and I need to shorten them. I was wondering how I would go about doing this? I do not want to spend $2,000 on a Phil Wood spoke machine, I am just looking to build my rear wheel, and shorten the original spokes to acept the new hub. Thanks. |
| sounds like you need to cut them off and re thread the ends.tricky part might be finding a die to cut those fine threads.a good machine shop should be able to do that though. |
| No! Do not use a die -- won't work. Spoke threads are not "cut" (which a die does), but "rolled". The difference is that no material is removed with rolled threads (look closely at a new spoke, and you'll see that the outermost parts of the threads are a slightly larger diameter than the shaft of the spoke). You'll need a specific spoke threading tool, which is a pretty simple device, and not super expensive. Problem is: where to find one (I've seen a few come across Ebay). |
| www.mikesbicyclecenter.com has one for $120 |
| Hello All, I have an old Raleigh 3spd and the rear wheel is out of round and no longer spins true. If any of you can lead me to a web site that might explain how to fix this, or a particular book it would be greatly appreciated. Also if i need to replace the rear wheel completly do you know of any web sites that might be selling them? Thanks Arthur |
| Hi Art lacing and trueing wheels is a art in itself and difficult to self teach.....ive tried not with much success. my recomendation is to take it to a bike shop which trues and laces wheels and have them fix it if it can be fixed about a 40.00 job here not much really.when you think about the cost of most things. good luck. |
| Have a bike store re-true the wheel, but before you take it in: -remove the tire, tube and rim tape -drip a little PBlaster or Liquid Wrench penetrating oil on the spoke where it enters the nipple and on the outside, where the nipple threads end. Let this soak in for about a day. Do it several times in very small quantities. Doing this will help the bike store in freeing what are likely rusted spokes and enabling them to true the wheel without damaging the nipples. When you get the wheel back, use rubbing alcohol to remove the oily residue. |
| can someone help he out with a good book for repairing 60's and 70's muscle bikes? --- especially need to learn how to work the shifter cables on 3 speeds and 5 speeds so I can replace rear tires (which I can do, thank goodness!)--- funny as it sounds, I would also like to learn a good way to raise the seat (other than using a hammer - ha!) |
| Go to www.sheldonbrown.com and click on then geras and driuvetrain icon and you will find the answers to your questions. Sheldon Brown is a top notch bike tech at Harris Cyclery in Boston and is an encyclopedia of knowledge. Cycle on! |
| Hi All, Looking for some help with a bicycle that I would like to have refurbished. It is a Ted Williams Sears Roebuck Bicycle. It has 26x 1 3/8 tires with tubes, Synchron brakes, BMA/6 certified, and has Free Spirit printed on the side of the frame. On the front of the fork is the Sears/TW signia. It is a regular cruising bike but I understand there were not many of these made. I would love to get it cleaned up and restored as closely to new as I can.. Can anyone please give me names of people who could do a job like this? Thank you! Claudia |
| Hi Claudia..are you new to this type of thing? First thing you will need to know is If the bike is already mostly origional. if it is the value will be higher if left alone and just cleaned up.If you want it to be like brand new and origional with all factory origional parts and perfect paint etc..the bottom line is $$$$$ mucho money for something which may not be worth near as much when finished.The best place to start is to locate pictures of the bike when new to see how it should look when finished.Then find a reputable restoration company or do as much as you can yourself. sometimes just a really good cleaning and polishing works wonders for these old machines.I would be happy to quote you a price on professional cleaning up of yours.if interested, email me Doug |
| Hi All, I'm currently doing some repair work on a 1942 Schwinn New World for a friend of the family. It was the bike he rode as a teen in the early '40s. I want to preserve the origninal finish as much as possible (there's quite a bit of rust on it but everything appears to still be sound structurally) so I'm just trying to clean it the best I can, protect the finish with paste wax, and redo all the bearings. My question is this: does anyone know what type of finish Schwinn used for the wheel rims of these bikes during the WWII era? I can find no traces of either chrome or any kind of paint on the steel [EA1] rims. There is a brown rusty coating on the rims now but it is so uniform that I suspect that the rims may have originally have had some type of rust-retarding treatment applied in place of a paint finish. I have seen firearms that have had a "parkerized" finish to retard rust and I've read that this process was developed during WWII. I'm wondering if Schwinn used some similar process during this time, as chrome was, I assume, in short supply during WWII. A rough original finish on the rims would have not caused problems with caliper brakes as this model has only a coaster brake. |
| I am restoring a 41 Shelby that I have in the yard. I am not planning painting it, but have cleaned it up, used a bit of cleaner way and then waxed it as much as possible. I have worked on restoration cars for quite some time so have an idea how to work on bikes as well. But....rust is evident on the metal braces (?) that run from the rear and front wheel fenders down to the where the fork holds the tire. Yes, I know, real technical here!... If those are pretty much shot with rust although still solid, to keep the value of the bike intact do I attempt to (a) keep working on the rust to get it off (b) perhaps work on the outside but take some Rust paint to cover the inside of those braces that are hard to get off using copper wire, etc or (c) throw away and get new ones. Much of the rest of the bike will look okay, not perfect since some of the paint is off or dull, dings etc..... Any ideas from a newbie in the bike business? Thanks in advance |
| Need some help finding a diagram of a three speed hub on a '68 Columbia Sports III. Engraved on it "333". Would this possibly be a Shimano hub? Any help appreciated. thanks |
| Yes, a Shimano hub. We have exploded diagrams of them in our General Resources section. |
| the diagram helped figure out what goes where and i did fix the problem. only trouble is getting it back together in proper working order. have been told its almost impossible and wonder if anybody here has accomplished this task. matthew |
| You may find additional info at www.sheldonbrown.com. Go to the gears and drivetrain section. Cycle on! |
| I am about to start a repaint project on a Cleveland Welding mfg Roadmaster LUXURY LINER. It looks like the 1951 model in the stare and compair pic's. I have not been able to locate a source for a repop decal for the chain guard. Can anyone steer me to a decal source? Also if someone could tell from serial numer J56324 520 what year I have, I would be greatful. Regards--jerry f |
| Guess nobody has any info for me-- |
| Try www.cyclart.com or www.nostalgicreflections.com Cycle on! |
| I have a 1964 Sting Ray (coppertone) that has a head badge with absolutely no paint. It is in good condition and shows no indication of ever having any paint. I've looked at numerous pictures and all the head badges I've seen have paint. Did it possibly have just black lettering at one time? Any help would be much appreciated. You can view a picture of the head badge at: members.cox.net/krichardson22/HeadBadge.JPG |
| blue magic for the rims is the trick for super crome part weaven |
| i have this old schwinn breeze, female model and bright green, and i found out the coaster brake is shot. what part(s) do i need, by name, to replace this part? im at my parent's house so i dont have the serial number, but i could provide it if you need it. also, what specific tires do i need for this bike, if they are specific? let me know. : ) thanks. |
| Several coaster brake hubs were used on Schwinn bikes and you didn't mention which one you have. The brake arm will have the brand. All of them are simple to repair and they rarely wear out. The most common problem is old hardened grease in the mechanism. The Schwinn Breese had different wheel sizes in different years. The tires are specific to the type of Schwinn rim (S5, S6, S7) and the wheel diameter (20", 24", 26", or 27") |