1950 Panther Project

Got up at 3 this morning so I could sand the head tube and bottom bracket before leaving for work..got most of it done just the nooks and crannys left and the front legs of the forks... then start smoothing both the frames out with progressively finer sand paper. Ive got a fender that I need to mod to fit, and make some stays for it then sand it then I can start painting... I need more time in the day!! or less work.
 
Not much progress lately. Changed the direction of this bike mid-build. Decided to go with a Harbor Freight 4 stroke EZ motor tranny with sheave belt drive. Spokes and motor arrived today so I have a wheel and throttle to build. Waiting on the sheave. Here is the bike with a bit more sanding and a seat and bars to make me feel like Im getting somewhere.

Cheers

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Bike is looking good. I hate to say this, but I don't think the HF greyhound will fit in that frame. It is a tight fit in the cantilever Schwinn which has more room. The HS engine will fit in the panther frame, but it is tight for vertical space. I hope I'm wrong and you find a way to squeeze the HF engine in there.
SB
 
silverbear said:
Bike is looking good. I hate to say this, but I don't think the HF greyhound will fit in that frame. It is a tight fit in the cantilever Schwinn which has more room. The HS engine will fit in the panther frame, but it is tight for vertical space. I hope I'm wrong and you find a way to squeeze the HF engine in there.
SB
Click to expand...

Of course..
 
Oof, I think he's right. How the heck are you gonna do it, I have faith in you, but THIS I wanna see :D
 
OK so I had see if this motor would fit ( a little late on My part) I stripped it down of exhaust, gas tank, air filter. I set a 4 stroke mount in the frame I had to get an idea of how tight of a fit it would be....pretty tight. Definitely need custom mount welded in. This is pretty much where the engine has to sit there is a tiny bit of room front to back for adjustment but not much. As far as height tiny tiny bit up thats it. Now I dont know how exact the placement the tranny in relation to the rear wheel has to be for installation. Anyone tell me how much tolerance there is with placement ? Here are a couple pics of the dry fit..any thoughts???

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That sure will be tight :D Very cool though Chain! I think I'm not gonna worry about chain alignment until I have my rear sprocket and adapter and I can line everything together with several annoying hours of grinding and tweaking. Hey, that's how these things work for me. I've accepted that :D
 
I feel alot better knowing that it fits the frame..Im still waiting for someone to chime in and say the placement of the motor will work.
 
You may be OK It looks nice sitting there and there is little extra forward and back room on the cantilever frame, too. It will be wider than the HS engine, but that isn't a real issue. The HS engine in the Panther frame got very tight at the top so that I had to trim a bit off of the choke lever to make it fit. The lay back tilt of the head on the Greyhound fits in there better than I thought it would. I think you will be OK on the tranny. For sure you will need an extra wide pedal crank. I bought the one piece kind and had to custom fit a sprocket from a kiddy bike, the smallest I could find. The crank I got had a hexagonal keyed center hole, so the little sprocket had to be filed out so it would fit. Not a big deal. I also had to bend the pedal arms to get enough clearance to the side for the pedals to clear the transmission cover so you may need to do that as well. Or you could use pedal extenders to get the pedals out to the side more. You'll know when you get to that point. I'm more hopeful than I was before, but it is still dicey. I sure hope it works out! I'm cheerleadin' for ya!
SB
 
If you were willing to cut a classic frame( ? ) you could curve the down tube in a way that would allow the engine to set lower, and also lower the center of gravity...?

-Kirk
 

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"IF" someone wanted to cut a frame and install a different shaped down tube,
The upper down tube on a '60s womens middleweight is quite severe in it's bends. Drops nearly straight down quickly, and bends nearly straight back at it's bottom instead of the normal 45-60 degree angles in the normal down tube. I got one just in case I found the gonads to cut up a vintage frame.
 
Doug713 cut up a girls Schwinn frame and looped a Panther for a little more room for a Whizzer. It can be done. I can't find a Panther frame to save my life these days. If the girls frame loop conversion catches on then we won't be able to find girls frames, either.........
 
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