Singlespeed & Fixed Gear - Schwinn Sprint low budget SS conversion

I'm converting a 10-speed Schwinn Sprint over to singlespeed use, and I'm going as low budget as I can. Got it at a thrift shop.

Got the freewheel off, and put on a BMX freewheel I pulled off an old cheap BMX bike. I'm going to stick with the steel wheels for now.

I'm also going to stick with the stock drop bars for now as well and save that for future changes. I will probably take off the turkeywings on the brake levers once I get the cables lubed up and new brake pads on there.

I didn't think about it but I should/will probably take off the spoke protector (dork disk). For now I just left it on there so I could verify the chainline. The chrome wiped up nicely so you can now see it from far far away if the sun hits it just right (super dork disk?????).

For the cranks and chainrings I have a problem. This is an older swaged and stamped setup where the large chainring is both the chainring and the pant leg protector ring stamped from one piece of metal. The smaller chainring then bolts to the main ring. For now I'm thinking of just leaving it as is and wait to find a cheap donor bike to pull a better crankset off of.

I was going to flip the bike but the rear derailleur wasn't playing nice and nobody wanted to buy it on the local CL. It fits me so I'll just keep it as a SS project bike.

Question: does anyone have any links showing what others have done with stamped chainrings? I'm thinking of using the Dremel cutoff wheel over the winter and slowly cutting off the pantleg protector and chunk by chunk removing the larger chainring teeth. Or maybe I'll see if a BMX crankset would work and see if it would also have a decent offset to line up with the rear cog.

Pics are of the bike as bought at the thrift shop and after I rotated the handlebars back into a more ridable position. Since the pics I have also dropped the stem down to below the max extension line and have the seatpost down a bit to fit me. I will have to find a different seatpost since the steel/hollow one in there is oval'd due to over-tightening by previous owners.

I'm open to suggestions, pics with the suggestions are good too.

Thanks.

ps, I know the tires have acne and are about to explode. I'm just leaving them on there for now because they are still holding air while I work out the major issues on the bike. I might have a set of alloy wheels in the garage to use if I like how this project progresses.

how far would you strip down to do this bike? i bought someones fixed gear project from craigslist , luckily it had a decent crank already included .
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jrd_Vp_PGPQ
http://i56.tinypic.com/312zq52.jpg
http://i52.tinypic.com/64f1ag.jpg

Ordered my parts on ebay. painted everything myself, rustoleum primer, lacquer and clearcoat,.. powder coating would be better, maybe in the future when i get a job Ill get it done. Check your local craigslist you can find alot of parts by just search keywords like fixie etc. This is my first bike outside of having a dyno bmx bike when i was a teen, so far I am loving this thing.

That looks nice.

I'll swap out parts or strip it down as needed as I find issues or different parts. I think I'll remove the rack next, and then the spoke protector.

When I make my super low budget FG/SS bikes I pretty much leave them alone. You can grind away at your crank but that might compromise its strength. This old LeTour cost me $28 to put together:

http://i812.photobucket.com/albums/zz48/Jacob54901/My%20bikes/IMG_0766.jpg

Looks and sounds good, crank stays unmolested. Easier that way, and if I do swap it out with another one then I can still use this crankset to repair another bike someday.

find out what year your schwinn is
http://www.angelfire.com/rant/allday101/SchwinnCodes4.html

I say keep the rack. Come in handy, they do. Nice bike.

This one is a Giant produced frame made for Schwinn, looks like mid-80's.

I've got a better/sturdier rack to use in the garage. The one on the bike now is a cheap/weak Pletscher (sp?) copy with the mounting tab split to go around the brake cable. The seattube crushing clampbar has already slipped just from messing with the bike. I'll mount the better rack with P-clamps and should be good enough to haul groceries in a pannier.

Looks like a fun project.

Here's a pic as the bike currently sits. I got the spoke protector off and it looks a little cleaner without that on there.

I may be changing directions on this though, I've got another bike in the garage with the rear brake cable routed below the top tube instead of above it, plus the other bike has some components I'm going to use on another bike. I'll decide this weekend which one I'll continue with. Or maybe I'll keep this one and sell the other one after I convert it over. Decisions, decisions, decisions, ....

Looks pretty good. What tooth freewheel did you put on there?

The smaller chainring is a 40 tooth, the rear came off a scrapped BMX bike and has 17 teeth. I think it works out to around 65 gear inches if I plugged the numbers into the sheldonbrown gear calc link correctly.

When I got my old Schwinn Sprint, the only thing in decent condition was the frame. I wanted to do it low budget ... but ended up buying new wheels, a new crank set, new BB, new cog and new chain. Still only ran me about $210 total. The saddle is crazy uncomfortable, but I've learned that I really like drop bars.

Yours looks like it's in way better condition. My Sprint is circa 1978. Solid steel frame. I'd imagine yours is solid, too. I'd keep the frame in case you later wanna make it a throwaround SS/FG. For funsies.

I found a 3TTT stem with a drop bar and aero brake levers in the garage that came off a donor bike, also had the DiaCompe 500 brakes with it in the bag. Put those on today and apart from the purple (violet?) cable housings it looks better. The stem also has a little more reach and feels a little better to me. I'll post a pic of it tomorrow in the daylight.

Ignore the dirt/grunge factor, right now I'm just working out the kinks, cleanup comes later (probably).

Cable housings definitely needs replacing and length adjusted which can wait until I get around to re-wrapping the handlebars.

I might try a different crankset on it that I've also got in the garage with a 44tooth smaller chainring on it.

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