You may have noted a few days ago in my shots of the great porch clean up that one bike and one wheel-set remained. The 1978 Schwinn Traveler III was close to joining the trip to the scrap yard, but I thought that I had enough parts to make a working bicycle and that I could achieve multiple goals in one project; reduce my clutter, make a usable bike without spending any money, and put some $$ in my pocket. This bike piqued my interest last May and I thought I would give it a shot.
The Traveler in now in the work-stand and the first thing I noticed is that the seat post, even though is has a LeTour mark, didn't seem to fit quite right, close but not really a great fit.
So I tried the sprung saddle with seat post from the 1974 Nishiki Professional and it fit like a charm.
My philosophy for this project boils down to three things; ugly, functional and cheap. I think ugly will take care of itself especially if I resist the urge to clean and wax the frame, ugly is a theft deterrent, which is key for a campus bike.
For the functional part I knew I was going to need to check the bearings, when I was working on the Mirage hubs I also checked the hubs on the spare wheel-set, and I made sure they weren't dried out, I did add some additional grease but they should be fine. The headset though, is gonna need some work, as you can see from the photos above.
This frame has rear brake cable guides and half a rear derailleur guide on the chain stay but no shift cable guides on the down tube. Parts bin to the rescue! it yielded Huret and Shimano bolt on cable guides to solve that problem.
I have the wheels and rubber taken care of, its a mishmash but it should be functional, one tire is specialized and one is Boontrager, the front wheel is Shimano and I'm not sure about the rear one but they should get the job done. Since I am using "previously owned" tubes I have pumped them up to be sure they hold air before I mount them.
The cockpit shapes up like the photo above. I already talked about the saddle and seat post, the handlebars and grips were part of the 1980 Raleigh Rapide mixte purchase from bike works. If I hadn't sold the three sets of SunTour stem shifters in the parts bin on ebay last month, I would have set this up for stem shifters but I had a bunch of plastic thumb shifters in the parts bin so that is what I am going to use. I should admit that when I went to buy a MTB brake cable to finish the Mixte project I bought two additional cables with this project in mind so I have actually spent $4 so far, not sure where the city levers came from.
For the drive train the crank, rat trap pedals, and the SunTour U, RD all came from the 1983 Raleigh Record of Junk Bike fame. The 110mm bb is a modern sealed bearing unit that was in the parts bin as were the second RD, FD and plastic pedals. I hope to get a working drive train this collection.
The Side pull brakes also came from the junk bike. With a bit of clean up and sanding the Kool Stop brake pads should be usable but the barrel adjuster are very rusty so I am planning to use them to test oxalic acid for dealing with rust.
For extras I have a Pletscher rack and a clamp on water bottle cage which both came from the 1980 Raleigh Rapide Mixte.
I didn't use the rack on the Mixte project in part because I had misplaced both a key bracket and the nuts and bolts. I have since stumbled across the bracket which I taped to the rack so I wouldn't lose it again. I was also able to come up with enough hardware (lower left bottom picture above) that I should be able to mount this rack. I like to think that both my father, and grandfather, a carpenter, would be glad I had a collection of random nuts, bolts and washers, however they might be wondering how a guy in his fifties only has two small tins worth.
The plan is to assemble all these parts into a ugly but functional bike, sell it for $50 on Craiglist and hope it ends up cruising someplace like the University of Washington -pictured above.
Until next time; Ride, Recycle, Smile, Repeat.
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