Classic & Vintage - retro fitting caliper brakes to old schwinn cruiser

I am going to go look at schwinn cruiser frame. the intent is for a father/son project bike....he likes cruisers even though he loves his bmx

Has anyone retrofitted caliper brakes to one of these? I am guessing that the front may not be too difficult and might go coaster/front brake combo.

Any input (and good sources for items like wheels) would be appreciated

thanks

How good are you with a torch. You will need to braze on the mounts for the cantilevers. Roger

How good are you with a torch. You will need to braze on the mounts for the cantilevers. Roger

not as good as my brother....but he is far away :D

I was thinking more like drill a hole through the fork crown and use calipers, not canti....am I dreaming?

If the fork crown is just a "normal" type lacking a hole, it is no big deal. I did this very thing on a bike I built up for my daughter. You just need to need to carefully layout the holes .My recommendation would be to drill from each side , not just one shot all the way thru. Easier that way.

I did this to mount a rear caliper on a BMX frame for a boy's bike. Very do-able, just measure carefully for placement and shoot straight with the drill.

My old schwinn has a mountain bike fork with the cantilever bosses already on it. c;oaster brake in back.

I probably wouldn't bother. The coaster brake works okay for what the bike was intended for. And if you're riding fast or going down mountains, you probably don't want to be using an old fork with holes drilled in it, anyway.

I don't know how much the wheels differ. But the bikes with rod brakes have a different rim (I think) from normal bikes, and the older steel rims may vary as well. Check the rim geometry and see how it looks.

Original schwinn cruzers came with calaber brakes on some models(1955-1960)Just take a look at some old catalogs on line.