20" ain't really a lot ma'am

[deacon]

As most of you old timers know I build with 20" rear wheels. What I usually do is convert the rear wheel of a 26 or 24" bike to a coaster 20" wheel. I like that low rear end so that I can get my big one over it easily.

I have been thinking about another problem I have with bikes. Moving them around the shop. I have a 24 " full suspension that I converted to a 26" front wheel and a 20" rear wheel and that goes in and out pretty good.

I have a 27" three speed that I converted to a 26" front and a 20" rear wheel and it goes in and out of the shop pretty well. The frame is actually pretty short front to back.

My third bike is a 26" frame Huffy good vibrations bike. It has a full sized frame. It is a mutha to get around the door that some idiot hung to swing in the wrong direction. Then some other idiot (me) put in a raised floor that limited it to only half open. That second idiot also built a partition to make a seperate storage area. anyway there is a tight 90 degree turn going out. The full sized huffy has to be hossed out. I am getting old and the hoss factor is decreasing quickly. That being the case the shorter bikes are much easier to move around.

Enter the 20" hybrid bike. I usually buy two bikes anyway before it is over. I have to have the pedals and chain ring from a 20" when I install a 20" rear wheel. My legs are to stiff to pedal a 26" pedal set. So the easiest would be to take a 20" and just change out the front end. It should give me the same thing i have in the others only in a short bike.

So I'm going to measure the huffy connection and try to find a kids 20" bike with the same size connection. Anybody ever do this kind of thing. I could use some input on whether the connectors at the fork are the same or not.

Let me know or I'll keep you posted on the results.

 

[deacon]

Okay I didn't wait for the advice. I just went and did it.

I bought the above bike for 8 bucks at the thrift store.

I put the huffy front end on it. The 20 bike had a shorter housing for the fork so I had to make a spacer for the huffy front end. I messed around with some different things in different places. finally I trimmed a pvc joint to fit, the added it at the very bottom of the huffy fork assembly. It moved everything up an inch or so and I didn't have to change much of anything else. Here is the finished bike.

the next time you see this bike it will have an engine of somekind on it. It needs an addition to the kickstand. I will probably weld something on it since I am going to be welding by the time I get it ready. It also needs more paint on it but one thing at a time.

 

[Large Filipino]

I like how you essentially turned the girl's frame to a boy's frame by lifting up the front end! It would look rather goofy with a BMX frame but the way you did this just looks... right!
I assume a friction drive?
If you get a center stand with the two arms it should lift that rear tire up in the air when parked which is good for things like checking your driveline at speed.
Yea I love going to the thrift store for bike parts. I find gold in almost all bikes there.

 

[deacon]

All my bikes began life with someone else... I just rescue them from the crusher at the thrift store. The down side to this bike and it is the first one I had do it, is that it went over backwards with me when I hit a piece of broken pavement in the drive. I think I fixed th problem by raising the handlebars so that I can sit more forward.

Yes I'm already fitting it for the 33cc chainsaw engine. I can only keep three working bikes so I have to reuse the engines until one of them fails. I had two on the brink of failure because I found thing that work better since I converted the engines.

Now that I have a welder I am looking forward to improving the stability of the mounts on the newer builds. If it really helps I will probably go back and redo the 42 bike.

I have a new drive for it going down from a 1 3/4 outside dimension to a 3/4 inch outside dimension. I hope that helps with the hills and the starting from a stop. I think I am going to add some sand and jb to the drive wheel before I install it. But t his time just a little sand and after I apply plain jbweld. That mixture is really rough on tires.

This new (new to me) bike is short and will be easy to work around the shop. The 33cc engine that I am going to put on this bike is running a 1 1/4 in wheel but it does pretty well on the hills. I really am anxious to see the difference in the smaller drive wheel. I keep hearing what it will do now I will know for myself on the exact same engine.