Had a customer bring me a bike today for repair. He told me "his buddy said it was a good bike" and he couldn't get it started.
I looked it over and found a couple problems right off.
The front mount was a joke, with weak threaded rod and a hole drilled through the downtube.
When I removed it, I found this huge wallowed hole under the spacer
I now have to weld up the damage to the frame tube and install a decent U-bolt mount. I will also be fitting the rear mount correctly to the new position on the frame since it was just bolted right over the bottle rack screws and could not be tightened. I will have to grind off the bottom mounting screw boss to allow the mount to sit square and flush.
I also noticed the tensioner bracket was installed wrong so the chain would not track correctly on the idler.
This will need to be fixed after I get the mounts sorted.
Next, after completely rebuilding the rear wheel bearings and coaster brake (which had been assembled all wrong and was totally locked up), I finally got the rear wheel turning freely with a functional brake and no slop.
Look carefully at these wheels. They are very nice HD steel rims with 10g spokes and good hubs and the "builder" had nearly destroyed them simply putting the bearings and cone nuts in the wrong order!
He is actually very lucky the motor could not be started! If he had ridden it even a few feet, the rear hub and axle bearings would have been ground to junk.
It it very unusual to find such beautiful HD wheels on a bottom line Cranbrook cruiser around here. It's like finding a blown hemi in a rusty beater dart!
More pics when the rain stops.
I looked it over and found a couple problems right off.
The front mount was a joke, with weak threaded rod and a hole drilled through the downtube.
When I removed it, I found this huge wallowed hole under the spacer
I now have to weld up the damage to the frame tube and install a decent U-bolt mount. I will also be fitting the rear mount correctly to the new position on the frame since it was just bolted right over the bottle rack screws and could not be tightened. I will have to grind off the bottom mounting screw boss to allow the mount to sit square and flush.
I also noticed the tensioner bracket was installed wrong so the chain would not track correctly on the idler.
This will need to be fixed after I get the mounts sorted.
Next, after completely rebuilding the rear wheel bearings and coaster brake (which had been assembled all wrong and was totally locked up), I finally got the rear wheel turning freely with a functional brake and no slop.
Look carefully at these wheels. They are very nice HD steel rims with 10g spokes and good hubs and the "builder" had nearly destroyed them simply putting the bearings and cone nuts in the wrong order!
He is actually very lucky the motor could not be started! If he had ridden it even a few feet, the rear hub and axle bearings would have been ground to junk.
It it very unusual to find such beautiful HD wheels on a bottom line Cranbrook cruiser around here. It's like finding a blown hemi in a rusty beater dart!
More pics when the rain stops.