Originally posted by shishi
That is a great candidate. I pulled an old panasonic out of the trash. All you really need to do it strip and clean it. Since you don't want to drop that much money get a rear wheel of Ebay...there is a cheap one that runs about $55.
HarrisCyclery has a cheap crank set for $65 (shimano Sora) or just get a cheap crankset on ebay.
You should be able to salvage the bars and brakes...you only need the front one to work.
He can also pick up a crank set at a thrift shop, attaced to the bike.
Question, with the crank tweaked: what is wrong with the frame then, becuase logic says there was some kind of mishap involved.