A series of questions as regards the Schwinn Super Sport
 

Hi everyone!

I have been riding on and off over the last 20 years, and I am finally back in the right headspace to get back on my bike. I used to own a 70's Schwinn Le Tour II, but I sold it as the frame was WAY too large for me.

I now have a Schwinn Super Sport that I am looking to restore/rebuild and I have run into a few issues that I would like to tackle in sequence.

First things first, I seem to have lost a part that I don't know the name of. It is a small collar that sits between the brake lever, and the cable housing. It seems that in my haste at removing old seized brake cables, I must have thrown it out accidentally. Now I have to find a replacement, but I dont know what this part is called. Hopefully I can post a picture here so you can see what I am looking for. I tried looking for a cable stop, but it doesnt seem to be the right name for this part.

If the picture doesn't show, I have it posted in my album in my profile. It is the picture of my hand holding the small collar I am speaking of.

Any Help would be awesome. More questions to follow.

https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...191d32bf44.jpg

Here's what one ebayer calls the $1 part: "Weinmann Step Down Brake Cable Housing End Stop Cap Hole."

Link to Album.

(If you post a pic of the drive side of the entire bike, I'll repost it here.)

Hi! You need a housing end stop for vintage road levers like this, I believe: https://www.ebay.com/itm/321144501164

Yep! Thats exactly what I was looking for! Thanks for the quick replies!

Ok, well one question down, many more to go.

In that same album, i took a picture of the headtube and forks. It seems to me that the front forks are bent back slightly, but its hard to tell. Ive been looking for my angle gauge for the last few days but havent been able to find it. Does the angle of the fork look ok, or is it actually bent?

Picture Assistance
 

https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...7511baea6a.jpg

https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...3fa5fa5f61.jpg

https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...351b8f1279.jpg

Likely Slightly? (Tough to tell from photos unless grossly bent.)

Try aligning a yardstick to the headtube as a sighting reference aid.

(These later SSs have "soft " steel forks, so realigning is not too problematic.)

Is the fork hi tensile steel on these? I know chrome moly is used for at least the main triangle but I wasn't sure about the rear triangle and fork.

Pictures often cause the appearance of it being bent back. To be sure, run a string along the center of the head tube all the way down past the fork bend. the upper part of the fork should be on the center line as well as the head tube. If it is bent, it is not enought to make a huge difference. If you can't sense it while riding, I wouldn't worry about it. If you want to straighten it out, take it to a frame builder or someone experienced in bending fors.
Keep in mind that the bend at the end of the fork was part of a strait tapered tube before it was bent. Forks are cold bent, no heat.

I love Super Sports, my dad gave me one for Christmas in 1965.

It is hard to do any fork alignment with standard home bench tools. You'd need my frame building tools to get an accurate check. One thing you can do when you take off the fork to maintenance the headset, is to check and see if the 2 fork blades are raked (bent) the same amount forward. Your bench top will probably work to do this check. Place the fork on the bench so the fork crown is very near the bench edge. The steerer needs to be exactly 90º to the bench's edge. In this position both fork dropouts should be touching the bench at the same time. If not (and you have made sure the fork is 90º to the table), then bend the fork blade that is not touching the bench forward just enough so both touch. Hopefully you have a bench vise that can hold the steerer while you bend. It is much more likely one is bent back than forward. These are often out of phase anyway.

The other checks like are the dropouts equidistant from the fork's centerline and are they also parallel to each other would require framebuilding tools.

Thanks for the replies again!

I am planning on disassembling the rest of the bike in the next few days. For now, it's all work, work, work.

Great idea on using the bench as a straight edge to check the fork. To be honest, I was looking for my angle gauge to figure out the bending situation.
Its hard to tell in the pictures, but with the naked eye, it does SEEM a little bent towards the rear. The chain was seized so it wasn't really possible to tell if there was a steering issue when I bought it.
I figured i would just replace the fork if it was bent.

I'll have some more pictures in the next day or so and get back to this thread then. Thanks again for all the replies!

You're standing a little aft of the head tube when you take those photos. If you stand exactly to the right of the head tube, so one fork blade is directly behind the other, that will provide a better visual sense of the angle of the blades relative to the head tube.

What I love about the SuperSport is that it was always a sleeper, because the average Joe easily mistook it for a Continental.

Remember to keep track of some of the odd-dimensioned items.

Like the seat tube of the frame being a little oversized, which required Schwinn to spec a special front derailer and also the clamp for the seatpost. You can bend certain other front derailers to fit, often also using a longer clamp bolt, but I'd try to keep the original F.der.

The seatpost diameter might be something strange too (I forget).

The headset is an obsolete size, maybe still used on BMX bikes? Dunno, I'm not in that world. You can get adapters to put a normal 1" headset in the Schwinn headtube if necessary, but it's not a standard item, most bike shops won't know what you're talking about.

The handlebar stem is 0.833" (21.1 mm), smaller even than French. There is no adapter that'll allow a standard stem, so don't lose this stem. Reaming the steerer to 7/8" (22.2 mm) is possible but difficult and just slightly dangerous.

If you need to remove the kickstand, say for repainting the frame, there is a trick to it, probably described in some BF post somewhere... ask if you need that info.

There are adapters to allow you to use a 3-piece crankset with threaded cups, if you want to knock a couple pounds off the weight and make your bike look like the next model up, the Sport Touring. The Ashtabula crank on the SS is very high quality though, for it's type, if you don't mind the weight. They're bombproof, but they take 1/2" pedals and that can be a weak point. I have broken two 1/2" pedals and once it caused a crash. Reaming/tapping the Schwinn crank to 9/16" is not feasible, not enough metal there. That's the main reason I upgraded mine to a 3-piece crank, to get the 9/16" pedals. I am big and heavy though. Many people have done just fine on 1/2" pedals, so it's not like they're a ticking time bomb.

If you post your serial number, we can tell you the model year. Tho some people can tell just from the parts on it and the color, which varied over the years.

Mark B, proud SS owner. OK maybe not all that proud.

Qualifications
 

Apologies for asserting with such certainty. I don't know for sure. I suspect destructive testing would be necessary to determine the truth. I've read muchly on the Fillet Brazed Schwinns and the consensus of people who might know seems to be that originally the Superior and the Super Sport were all 4130 and that when Schwinn stopped chroming the forks they switched to 1020 for the forks and stays. Does it make a difference? UO8 aficionados would likely say "non?"

Lucky Lad!

My Dad did not gift me one for Christmas, I got a Varsity instead.
Now I have two Super Sports, a '64 and a '73 and they are fun rides.

Well my late 70s Peugeot UO 10 weighs 27 lbs with an Ideale 39 leather saddle. It's close to being all original. My 1972 Sports Tourer, which is all original, weighs 31 lbs. I reckon the Schwinn is somewhat more likely to survive the zombie apolocalypse but I hope never to find out if that's true. ;)

The hard part will be getting the Monte Carlo wheels to fit. Probably worth more than the bike.

I have 3 1973 Super Sport riders and love them. What others haven’t mentioned is the frame angles giving a lively ride considering the age of the bike and practices at that time and price point. Sleeper it is. Mine are all the same color as yours. A response in one of my posts said that color came out in 72 as team Schwinn colors in a race IIRC. Lots of helpful people here liking to talk about those bikes. Also lots of fun reading for you here too if you search for Super Sport.

A little progress update.

Work kicked my butt today, so I didn't get a WHOLE lot done.

I decided to take the rest of the bike apart so i could check the fork angle and such.

The stem was seized in the fork tube.

WD-40, PB Blaster, Heavy oil, and heat did very little to loosen the stem. I ended up resorting to violence and stupidity.

That didn't go so well. bent the hell out of the fork, and ended up cutting the stem off just to keep progressing. I'll have to find a new fork. I already have a new stem and horns on the way. It's not going as smoothly as I was hoping, but it's definitely going forwards.

Here's a question for you guys. Do you prefer the look of of a brushed finish on your aluminum, or full polished? I am undecided on how I want to finish the shiny bits...

Question regarding forks. I found a possible replacement but would like some advice about it. I measured the existing fork from the crown to the top of the threads. I came up with 7.5 inches. Most of what I am finding is either a little shorter, or a little longer. I don't want to buy the wrong fork, so I turn to you folks. Is there any recommendations of models or perhaps upgraded forks I Should be looking for?

I gotta tell you that you depressed me yesterday when I read you had destroyed the forks trying to get the stem loose. From now on make sure that whatever you do doesn't do more damage. My mental state may not be able to take it!

I don't know that you will be able to find a replacement fork without some serious searching. And probably your only and best option would be another Super Sport fork. And where is there going to be an orphan? Super Sports weren't all that common. In the hierarchy of Schwinn road bikes they were cheaper than the Paramount and better than the much more common Continental. They were designed before the bike boom era starting in 1970 when 10 speed bikes were an uncommon sight (at least outside of CA). Schwinn understood that unusual sizes meant the owners needed to bring their Schwinn bikes back to a Schwinn store to get serviced. They were a bit heavy for more serious riders and a bit expensive for the casual rider.

There are 3 dimensions for a fork to fit a frame. I just measured my 1965 Super Sport and it has a fork rake of 2" (to give the proper trail for its 72º head angle). Most replacement forks today are made with 45mm of rake for 73º head angles. The distance from the center of the brake hole to the center of the wheel axle is 272 mms. Forks today are made for sidepull brakes with a shorter reach (center pull brakes had a longer reach). Your steerer length is 187mm long.

The question I have for Schwinn experts is whether the threading on a Super Sport is the same as on most other 1" steerers? I tried a conventional threaded headset piece on my Super Sport and it wouldn't thread on.. Mark indicated a few posts ago that the stem is also a different size?

Well I will say the damaging of the forks was completely unintentional and it wasn't until after I had decided to cut the stem off that I looked at the forks and realize how much I had actually damaged them.


Not to downplay what I was doing but I had really hoped that be able to take this part a little easier and it just didn't come apart. I will definitely try to be more gentle with everything else that I have right now.

I have some measurements from the damaged fork that would hopefully aid in my search. Its a 1" diameter steer, 24 TPI threading, and measures 7 and 3/8" from base of crown to the top of the threads. Its a hair ocer 14" from the crown to the droupouts.

I found a fork listed on ebay that seems like it would be an almost exact replacement, but i need an expert to weigh in. I cant post the link, but the item number is 303896630602

To everyone I might have pissed off, I profusely apologize. I didnt mean to be so careless.

Link assist - https://www.ebay.com/itm/303896630602

First Do No Harm!!!
 

Yes, the threading on a '73 SS is the same as on most other 1" steerers.

The threading on my 1973 Opaque Green SS's forks fully and easily accommodates the no-name top nut of the headset from my 70's Cooper, and vice versa. The top nut from the SS threads onto the steerer of my Cooper freely. (The headset absorbed all the damage from an inept packing job, but of course I kept the pieces in a baggie, which happened to be next to that SS which I'm currently reassembling to tow a trailer loaded with my origami sea touring kayak. (Tangential and extraneous details are free.))

Now I'm going to have to see whether the threading on my '64 SS forks is the same?

<sigh emoji>

(Edit: Fun Fact: The "Super" engraved stem from my '64 SS will not fit into the steerer of my '73 SS.)




To the OP: I wasn't "pissed" you destroyed your forks and stem, but rather Very Disappointed.

So, sounds like that fork will work then, right?

Also, YOU were disappointed? Imagine the look on my face when I realized i had damaged my forks!
:twitchy:

Forks In The Road
 

I do not know if that ebay fork will "work." I don't think so.

It is a replacement for a (likely Japanese manufactured) LeTour, not a Chicago brazed Super Sport. The rake is not given in the listing. The front spacing for the SS was 90,rather than 100mm, and that measurement is not provided in the ad either.

Didn't you hack up the stem too? That's the only reason you'd want the odd .833 stem aperture. If you're going to go with a non-original forks, then get something better than 1020 steel?

I'm not a LeTour or Schwinn "expert." I have a lot of Schwinns it seems? I happen to have a '64, a '73, and an (irrelevant to this discussion) '87 SS at hand from which I can derive data.

Others will opine.

Wouldn't a fork with a different steerer diameter also necessitate a headset swap? I'm thinking the OP is looking for a "plug and play" replacement.