Originally Posted by
DanBikeFan
...I have always been curious about the fork on these. Was it made by Schwinn? Do the later versions still have forged dropouts, even when the rear dropouts went to stamped? Some of the earlier fork versions (pre-1970, with the chrome forks) had very nice Nervex Pattern 6 fork crowns on them. Were those forks made out of a different material?
By 1971, the SS fork had an Asian-looking "T" symbol stamped on the steerer, making me wonder if perhaps the fork was indeed contract-built in Japan.
Might have been a baby-step prior to the later arrival of the LeTour bikes from Japan, the forks having by this time proven to be well-crafted to high Schwinn standards.
Just my speculation though, maybe just the steerer came in from outside. And of course Schwinn had been constructing tubular forks for decades prior.
On my two 1971 Supersports, all of the dropouts are stamped. I don't mind though since I prefer these later model's painted forks.
A dedicated hanger would have been Huret-style, so somewhat of an impediment to one using a different or newer derailer (I've stuck with the Allvits myself).
Oh, and some of these forks seem to have an issue whereby the crown race becomes a loose fit on the knurled steerer as the peaks of the knurling gets knocked down over a surprisingly short time (I've had to apply Loctite to a couple of similarly knurled Schwinn fork steerers).