I had the day off of work today and spent a lot more time than I expected "finishing" this up. I still have a couple minor things to do but it's rideable.

I pulled off the chain so I could check the bottom bracket. Noticed the crank was hitting the chain guard at one spot. The brackets for the guard a MUCH thinner than they were "back in the day" and were easily be reshaped by hand. (the fender brackets are the same way, not very sturdy). Judging by the hubs and headset, it should be no surprise the bottom bracket needed attention too. Same deal, too tight and this one was even a little crunchy. Pulled it apart and found there wasn't much grease and the grease that was there looked like Vaseline. The crunchiness turned out to be (I'm assuming) caused by the black finish on the parts. It was still on the cups where the bearings ran and starting to break down. The cones had an unfinshed strip with a ragged edge. I considered stripping the finish on the surfaces the bearings ran on but decided to just smooth it out for now and start considering a replacement. I'm guessing the BMX crowd has a solution for a decent one piece crank set up if/when the time comes.

At first I thought the chainring was strangely thin, but then noticed the chain is pretty narrow too. I'm used to seeing these things as single speeds, so some of the details look "wrong" when they may not be?

Adjusting the brakes and shifter is a pain with no stand. But before I adjusted them I shortened all the cable housings. They were way too long for my liking, that's one of my pet peeves. The housing are all lined, which they weren't back in the day, but I still sprayed some lubrication down them before slipping the cables back in. I don't have any of the little ends to crimp on to keep the cable from fraying, so I'll have to pick up some of those. For the time being I left them long and coiled them up.

Pedals - cheap plastic but work fine. I've put more traditional rubber pedals on the wanted list.

A few of the reviews talk about the deraileur being pulled into the wheel and destroying everything. Yeah, I can see that. Mine was a little off when I checked it so I tweaked the alignment some. I'm still not 100% satisifed with it but it will work for now.

The brakes... I'm not a fan of this style brake. My wife's bike has them too, they seem pretty popular, but they just feel spongy to me. I like brakes to have a firm, solid feel. There is no such thing as a too powerful front brake. On bicycles and motorycles, I want to be able to stand it on it's nose. This thing has a lot of details conspiring against that. Might have to look into upgrades on the brakes but the rims have to be tossed first. I'm also not a huge fan of the shorty levers. Strangely I use only one or two fingers on motorycles too but still like having a full length lever.

It turned out I had to true the rear wheel to get a decent brake feel. I put the front in the stand too but it only need minor tweaks.

And that's about it. I've only ridden the bike about 20 feet in my driveway so far but I have to say I was pleasantly surprised. It doesn't feel nearly as heavy/clunky as I remembered this style bike feeling. Assuming I don't have any major setbacks on it's first couple of rides I'd say it's going to work out great for what I wanted.

That said...

IMHO to get a decent bike out of this you basically have to rebuild everything. I just don't see someone with no mechanical experience assembling one of these in a competent manner. Even if you bring it to a bike shop to have it adjusted I don't see things like the hubs and bottom bracket being addressed, not for the cost of a typical brake/shifter adjustment anyway. NONE of the bearing adjustments were even close. None of the bearings were lubed well. I'm guessing the department stores don't bother setting bearing adjustments so having them assemble it is no solution either. Bottom line I guess is you get what you pay for.

Oh yeah, I'm also surprised at how small this thing looks! I put it out in the garage next to my wife's bike and it looks like a 24" bike or something. Was not expecting that.

EDIT: One more thing, the kickstand. It looks like the cheapest stand I've ever seen but it is surprisingly sturdy. I was going to replace it with an aluminum part but now I'm not so sure.