Discovered an intriguing mystery frame at the bike coop. Painted over with a brush, so impossible to get info from the paint and decals (though it does have a City of Fort Wayne bike license on it). Some components, no wheels. Not sure what was original.

Largish size fillet brazed frame. Pretty light. Forged cutout rear drops with no name that I could find; cross-hatch knurling in the clamp area. Integral der hanger and one eyelet. Fastback seat stays. TA (?) crank (drive side only ). Pentagonal cable stop doohickey under the downtube. One braze-on FD cable stop on the left side of the downtube and a RD stop on the chainstay. RD cable guide on bottom bracket. Brazing is a little sloppy. Straight tubular chainstay bridge and brake bridge. Seatpost is no smaller than just about 27 mm (I have english-only manual calipers). Press-fit sealed BB bearings. BB SN 553198.

Bike has been repainted (quite inexpertly) several times, but on the bb, there are traces of what look like original paint ... the color is red.

That's about it. Headset is knurled in a diamond pattern. Fork is a dead ringer for a Schwinn Continental (alll chrome) and steerer has been sawn off at a non-90-degree angle, so I'm betting it's a relacement. Joins at head tube look like maybe there was a crash in this bike's past. Other components that are one it are bike boomy and I have no idea if they were orig: Shimano Titlist FD, Weinmann brakes and levers (with gum hoods and black rubber lever covers--no suicide levers). It did have bar-end shifters, but someone seems already to have harvested those.

(iphone) Pics!!

https://www.flickr.com/photos/8214363...7624181693853/


https://www.flickr.com/photos/8214363...7624181693853/


https://www.flickr.com/photos/8214363...7624181693853/


https://www.flickr.com/photos/8214363...7624181693853/



https://www.flickr.com/photos/8214363...7624181693853/

Looks like a Viscount Aerospace Pro... I'm no expert though.

Viscount. For sure.

And a replacement fork would be expected on a bike from the company notorious for the aluminum "death fork."

This Viscount has already had the fork replaced. These were reasonably good quality filet brazed frames made from a Chrome Moly tubing. All the hung-on equipment was also made by (or for) Viscount. I have seen a lot of these restored and I think it would be a worth while project. Some might disagree but I do not think it is collectable enough to wory about finding original eqpt.

Didn't those have pressed in bearing in the bottom bracket?
-Gene-

funny I am not sure I knew what a Viscount was until last summer but that was the first thing that popped into my mind.

at first I thouhgt it was nothing but the BB got me to thinking. looks like I have actually learned something in all the countless hours I waste er uh um spend here

Well, thanks for the information.

This bike is a mess. No wonder someone "donated" it to the coop.

Drive-side crank extractor threads are stripped.


Previous owner had one arm shorter than the other:


Long sickening crack in the fork:


I THOUGHT that seemed like more than gloopy paint!!! A weld on the downtube that goes all the way around.

Those threads don't look stripped from the photo - they aren't TA-thread, by any chance, are they? I know the TA-produced Viscount arms generally used 22mm extractors, but it isn't out of the question for an oddball to have slipped through.

-Kurt

I always suspected (no proof) that Williams in England made those arms for Lambert/Viscount, not TA.

Could be. They did a good job of imitating them though, if that's the case.

-Kurt

At any rate, someone like me has used the regular crank extractor and failed. The threads look messed up. I DID wonder whether they used TA threads, but when I discovered they weren't TA cranks (ARE THEY?), I thought, oh, surely Viscount wouldn't replicate a weirdo standard. I just assumed they had these made themselves.

However, this would explain why the extractor fit so loosely in the threads.

At any rate, I only have the drive-side crank. Not sure what I'll do with it.