I would love to find a 5-speed collegiate like the ones above. Very nice.

The brake levers came off easily - the screws were somewhat loose.

Stuck right now on getting the bottom bracket loosened. It's pretty seized up, so off to home depot for liquid wrench. Once the BB and headset are off, though, it'll be totally broken down.

You do know about them being left handed threads? I know probably preaching to the choir, but you never know. Good deal on the
brake levers. In my experience they're either loose, or frozen solid, with nothing in between.,,,,BD

You know, I did know about the reverse threading on the BB. Then I started doubting myself on that when I couldn't loosen it, so I ended up googling it anyways

Just got home with the liquid wrench (or whatever brand it is), so I'll try that in a minute.

Well, I think I made the first (small) mistake of this project. Picked up a Mavic fixed gear/SS wheel set off of craigslist, but it seems the hubs are too wide for the rear dropout. Oh well, guess I've now got parts for the next fix-up. Looks like I'll just have to put a little more work into cleaning up the stock wheels - here's what those are looking like after some serious rust removal work, at least on the front wheel.

You found 26x1/38's Mavic wheels with a fixed gear hub? So are you refurbishing the bike, or making an FG/SS?,,,,BD

My plan initially was to refurbish/restore the Racer, but I was playing around with the idea of a fixie/SS conversion in the back of my head, and got a good deal on the wheelset. I think now I'm firmly on the refurbish side of things, as I'm thinking the Racer isn't the best conversion candidate. Kind of learning as I go here. I spent a lot of time rebuilding BMX bikes as a kid, and I'm not surprised that I'm making a few mis-steps doing the same for the first time with a classic bike. That's half the fun, though

No, they're 700c wheels. Now in retrospect, I'm seeing the brain fart here. Like I mentioned in the last post, my mechanical familiarity with bikes stems from my BMX days - I have a tendency to view all "adult" bikes as being 26" bikes. That was the way people referred to 10-speeds and what not growing up, and that mind set stuck. I realize now that there is a slight difference and a bit of incompatibility between 26" bikes and ones with 700c wheels, lol.

So again, I'm learning as I go. On the bright side, I'll have fun re-reading this thread in a few months and laughing at my naivete