Vintage 4 Stroke Cruiser Build

Good afternoon,

Very long time lurker, this will be my first post, and will soon be my first build thread. I've built about a half dozen happy times over the last several years, a few for myself and a few that i've helped friends build. Not for profit or anything, I'm just fascinated with all things that have an engine and engines themselves, especially two-wheeled ones. Although they certainly got me hooked and I genuinely enjoy lots of tinkering, I've concluded that I am going to build a 4-stroke and will probably not turn back. I've always loved enduros and have owned several, both new and old school, 2 and 4 stroke, and have always preferred the performance, reliability, and ease of maintenance of 4 stroke(not to mention the sound and lack of a smoke trail).

Anyhow, within the next couple weeks, I'll be building a 4 stroke cruiser. 2 of the happy times i've built were on wally world cruisers and was thoroughly unimpressed with how unfit they were for motorization(especially a $99 huffy, lesson learned). I've spent the past few weeks checking CL everyday for a suitable cruiser and in my current area (College Station) almost all of the bikes are mountain bikes or road bikes. I really prefer the appearance and riding position of a cruiser when motorized and think it would compliment the 4 stroke nicely. This post originally was for suggestions regarding a few potential bikes to build on, but the person who replied to my wanted ad for an older cruiser on CL with 4 vintage cruisers failed to mention he was about 10 hours away- much too far of a drive for a project bike. So I'm back to square one hunting for a suitable cruiser. Was going to delete the thread, but I don't think that's possible. However, I'm still going through with my build and will post pictures and updates as I obtain a bike and all the parts!

I'm still doing a little debating as to which kit to go with. It's either a 4G from Bicycle-Engines which I've heard lots of praise about, or the mysterious 7G copy. The main factor being the $50 price difference as I have a limited budget, and if the bike i'm selecting needs a good bit of money and work into it, i may have to go with the 7G. I have no problem replacing a bushing or clutch every now and then, but of course I'd prefer not to have to. I know its kind of uncharted territory at this point, and yes I've done numerous searches and have read every thread regarding the 7G. Please correct me if i'm mistaken, but it seems that they both have the oil-lite bushing which requires oil-baths as regular maintenance and proper belt tension to keep happy, or cobra freak's bearing mod to replace and never have to worry about it again. But I also see that many of you have racked up thousands of miles on the latest 4G without any major repairs, time will tell for the 7G i suppose.

Though someone will always have a bad experience or opinion of any product, and many will have great experiences with them and be too busy to write or review said product.

I know that B-E is more reputable, and has good customer service from what I can gather, and that gas-bike is quite the opposite, but in my HT days I did order a few kits from them with nothing missing, received in timely manner, etc. no complaints. But I did read on here from a few of problems with the 7G mounting plate being inferior, which definitely is a concern.
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EDIT: 2 possible local bike candidates at the moment.
-First, a Schwinn "Shipyard" is what the seller is calling it. Looks like a "Deliveri" model, he says it was actually used at a shipyard as an employee's transportation. Apparently he got it as just a frame and forks, took it apart, and repainted it, put it back together. I like the look, and if you all think a HS/4G would mount right up to the frame, this is the one I would go with. I believe the top red plate is usually just bolted on, but he says it was welded on, which would pose a slight challenge for fitting a fuel tank there, but hopefully it was just tacked and can be removed. Heck, maybe its thick enough to use as a wall of the tank after removal, and if not, at least a template. He's asking $100

-Second, a single speed schwinn sanctuary "ridden twice". Looks brand new. Both have just coasters, so i'd be fitting at least v brakes front and rear. He's asking $95 and probably won't negotiate much since its $175 new and is still new, but you never know. I know people usually have good results fitting an HS in these frames without modification, correct me if i'm wrong.

Any thoughts?
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I apologize for making such a long post, but now you all know where I stand and my intentions. I hope I broke the text up into enough paragraphs as to not be hard on the eyes, if not, let me know and i'll break it up some more. I really appreciate any help or insight you guys can offer, you've already all helped me immensely with tons of excellent information.

Thanks again,
GulfCoastCruiser
(Kyle)

Also, I plan to eventually run a chopper fork like the Micargi Rover GT has, not chopper length, just a standard triple tree for that motorcycle appearance, or possibly a triple tree fork with suspension if i can find one(I want to say i saw some on bicycle designer for about $70?) Though I'm not sure how easily they'll mount up or if they'll require cutting or adapters. I really like the springer fork too, and if i did that I'd certainly upgrade to the heavy duty spring. But it seems they're more looks over actual suspension function.

Also looking for brake suggestions. I know v-brakes are the cheapest option. I would love to have a disc up front, but price is definitely a factor and if an "affordable" disc setup isn't worth the hassle, I'd love some suggestions. I would love to do front and rear drums, but have never laced hubs before, and again, price is a factor. I've never been fond of coaster brakes. But I wouldn't ride a motorized bike that did not have at least decent front and rear brakes.

Thanks!

4 Stroke Schwinn Build

If the thread name can be changed to "4 stroke schwinn build" somehow, that would be great.

Well, I was itching to do my first 4 stroke build so bad I couldn't wait around to try to find a nice vintage cruiser candidate. A Schwinn Jaguar in great shape popped up on CL near me for 80, and I ended up taking it home for $60. A couple days later my kit came from bicycle-engines.com, and I dove right in.

I did run into a few minor problems during assembly that I knew were possible to run into. But thanks to extensive reading on this site before hand, I knew what to do and got it done. The motor mount wouldn't fit the angles of the cruiser frame by just a few degrees, an angle grinder and a steady hand made quick work of that, it now sits flush and is extremely solid.

Also, the pedal crank that came with the kit was keyed(for the sprocket) about an inch too far away from the frame, bringing the pedal chain out too far and pretty well out of line. Again, a steady hand with the angle grinder solved that, the keyway is now an inch or so closer to the frame and the pedal chain is nice and straight. Other than those two things, everything went together surprisingly well. The last kit I bought was a 2 stroke a couple years ago, the quality of the little things, and the big things alike in this kit impressed me. I didn't feel like I was going to strip every bolt/nut like the old, cheap, 2 stroke kits. (Not hating on the 2 stroke, its all preference, but personally I won't go back!)

I had almost went with the gas bikes 7g kit, and I'm quite glad I spent the extra $50 for the B-E kit, its definitely worth it. Thanks to all who recommended it on this site.


I consider the bike about done now, but there are still a few things on the to-do list: plastic paint can engine shroud (it's cool seeing the flywheel spin but wouldn't be cool to lose a finger), and paint the belt cover that I cut like phantom bikes does, because I scuffed it with a sander smoothing out the cuts and really love the look without a cover. However, I can see a shoelace or a pant leg getting caught in there and wouldn't want to ruin the belt or anything like that, so it's going to get painted gloss black and installed.

Reading about flex pipe exhausts and the performance bump they give, and all the abundant praise they received, I wanted to ditch the stock exhaust. But I wanted to make my own solid pipe instead of a flex pipe. And I was too impatient to wait for one to be shipped.

So I went to home depot and got 5 feet of steel 3/4" EMT conduit for $2.58 and 2 90 degree bends for about 3 bucks each, plus the 3/4" threaded briggs style muffler, made a few cuts, and fabbed up a quick flange. Headed to a buddy's place to use his miller, and about 30 minutes later had my exhaust! Now, my welding experience is a bit limited, but the exhaust is REALLY sturdy, and didn't even need anything to fasten it to the bike aside from the exhaust manifold studs. But due to the length and leverage from the length in the event of something hitting or pressing against the muffler, I didn't want to stress those 2 little studs, so I got a large hose clamp and secured the muffler to the frame. I can now pick up the back of the bike by the muffler with no bending or flexing in the pipe.

The low end grunt gain from the pipe is awesome. Not to mention the sound. Definitely doesn't sound like a generator anymore. More like a 125cc 4 stroke pit bike. But with how long I made the pipe its out behind me, and really not too loud, though I wouldn't mind it a bit quieter, I'm really glad I didn't do a true straight pipe. Plus I love the way the pipe came out looking. I still want to clean up the welds with a grinder and get some clear engine enamel to protect the raw steel (wire wheeled off the galvanizing or whatever coating was on there).

Has anyone done this before? I'm wondering if I need to do anything to make the enamel stick to the pipe well. I want to wire wheel the whole thing to make it somewhat shiny, but I'm not sure if the paint will stick to that. Just wondering how to have it rough enough that the paint will adhere, but not so rough that the metal doesn't have luster... I'd like for it to look as shiny as possible. Not polished or chrome, but just like a sharp looking MC exhaust. Any help with that is appreciated.

I put on a longer, stronger kickstand since the pics because the old one was too short for the tires and too weak for the extra engine weight and wanted to fold over and lay the bike down with any pressure on it. Also got a speedo and so far my top speed is 27.3 but I'm not trying to top it out anymore while it's breaking in. Really blown away at the smoothness compared to the 2 smokes i built in the past. By now I would've had to order 3 more replacement parts and would have had to readjust a half a dozen things.

I've had the bike built for a few days now and haven't had to do a single thing to it! Lovin the 4 stroke. Waiting for the chain to stretch a little more so I can take out a link and hopefully ditch the tensioner. The one in my kit is actually pretty sturdy but I just don't like the idea of them and the possibility of folding into the spokes, but it works!

I think that's enough (too much?) text for now, so here's some pics. I apologize for not doing a more incremental build thread, but everything got here and I was too stoked not to put it all together. Thanks to everyone on this forum for the abundance of knowledge shared, it really helped during the build.

Schwinn 4 Stroke Build

And a few more pics. Had to crop them a lot to be able to upload.