[superfly]

Grape Ape-i'm so glad you saved that bike. Your wife will soon be tooling around on the coolest whip in town.

[Grape Ape]

Yep, sadly she will have to wait another month. I am on my way back out of town at noon tomorrow and the bike is down until I get back. She wishes I had gotten to it while home but the busted waterline, sick dog, dental work, etc... all took up the 3 days I had free from work.

Most of the parts are here though so I will be able to hit it hard when I get back home, late June.

[waldowales]

I love those old Breezes, too. I restored one for my daughter a few years ago. That rust will clean right up with the Never Dull stuff.
Anything you need for it should be readily available, cables, shifters, bearings, tires, everything.
Here is the one I did.

[Grape Ape]

waldo, were you able to find the gray cable housings or did you go with white? I can't quite tell if yours are gray or white in the picture. I am going to probably go with white since I can't find the original gray ones anywhere.

I am also going to go with the gum sided tires for now. I wish I could have kept the original Schwinn labeled tires.

The one you did looks good. Congrats on saving one.

[waldowales]

I went with white. There are several places that have gray, Bike World USA for one. I thought white looked better with the violet paint, besides, that's what was on it when I got it.
The original, (rotted) Schwinn tires were gum wall, so that's what I went with.
I've lost track of the site that has pictures of them in the catalog, but the picture I saved from it looks like white cables, and it definitely has black wall tires.
If you don't know about the Schwinn forums, here is a link:
Collector's Forum - Schwinn Forums
Great source of knowledge about these old bikes.

[Grape Ape]

Yeah I found the forum. Mine had the black wall tires and gray cables but I figured that the white ones would look better with the white accents and lettering so I went with that rather than dig and dig and dig to find the gray cable housing.

I just can't wait to get off the road so I can work on it.

[Grape Ape]

Well I finally got it back together. There is still a little shining that needs done but overall it is done. I still have the rack and lights left to do but we decided it would be a good thing to save for winter and get out and ride it.

Today was it's maiden voyage since the rebuild. The Sturmey Archer 3 speed shifts like a brand new one. Smooth as glass. I found out after putting the gum walls on it they were the wrong size (schwinn's use a specific tire size it is a 26x 1 3/8 but it is an S6 type) So I bought new tires today after the maiden trip to get the tire bead to seat properly and ride right.

We took it to a local park and rode around for a while. I was on the 3 ring up front and 5 in the rear and was still behind. Not complaining the view was great. She was just flying along, with a huge smile on her face the entire time. She liked it so much that even wore out when we got back to the truck she decided to go for another loop around the parking lot just so she wouldn't have to stop. Jello legs finally ended the riding.

Here are some pics. Most of the chrome is now shiny but there is still some shining left to be done, along with some painting of some of the galvanized parts.

[Xela]

Awesome job, Grape! How ya been?

[bikebum1975]

Man Grape she turned out fine that is one purdy ride. Love those old bikes myself hope to get a few of them LOL

[trx1]

awsome score! price was right, and the deal u got was perfect! ride with pride!