Hey guys, thought I'd give you all an update. First off I've been doing a lot more reading on here and a lot of Varsities about the same age as mine have been brought out to be fixed and I had read about cleaning the bike further with some Meguiar's Scratch X. I actually had a tube of the stuff in the trunk of my car, and while it didn't work so great on the small scratches on my car I took a chance on the bike, and this stuff did wonders! Except for the heavy scuffs on the top bar it's brought back the deep finish in the metallic paint.

While polishing the front post some of the stuff got on the chrome parts and it made it shine I tried it on the shiny metal covers that don't do any thing but cover the gears and they really took off the rust and corrosion. I tried it on the handlebars and it made it shine there too. My question is, is this good for the metal or am I doing more harm than good? Should I go with an oxalic bath none the less? Should it have been done first? Also, do I need to do anything else? Wax, maybe?

Also I've been doing some thinking and a donor bike would make the process easier. So after some searching and I found a 26 inch ladies varsity that also happens to be the same color as our bike on craigslist that looks to be in good condition. If the cables, the rims, the handlebars and rear derailleur are in good condition they'd put my bike in top form. What is a good price I should pay for it? And will I run into any compatibility problems?

Of note is while I was cleaning I saw that the rear derailleur was indeed not original. Its a Raleigh Suntour. Any thoughts? Anyone want it? Should I try and update it or return it to stock?

Continuing, I was looking close at the wheel hubs and they have "model '71" stamped into them. I thought that was pretty cool so I'm gonna try and keep them, clean them and have them relaced to new rims if the donor wheels don't work out. How much could it cost, and does anyone know of a good rim / wheel combination for the bike?

Another point are the brakes. They are pretty small for such a heavy bike as compared to my trek which has almost twice the braking surface and half the weight. I want to keep as much original equipment and someone mentioned Koolstop somewhere and the Dura Road Holder looks like it'd be perfect.

One thing my pop was asking about was that his bike used to have a leather schwinn bag that hooked into the holes under the seat. I think its been lost for a while now, but does anyone know of it, or where I could find one?

I want to Thanks so much for all your help so far, this bike would have ended up back in the shed or worse by now if not for this forum.