Oops, now what do I do make itchy trigger finger lemonaide?
 

Sometimes I KNOW I have a problem. Today my itchy trigger finger made a bad decision. I was cruising one of my usual thrifts at lunch and spotted a Schwinn WorldTourist(made by Giant, Schwinn Approved) for sale. I pullted it out from behind the huffy mtn bike and looked at it. The bike is a pretty burgundy color with matching fenders and beautiful chrome, tires looked to be in good shape rubber wise. The paint was in pretty good shape, I spun the tires and looked for run-out on the wheels, check, tried the brakes, rear brake check, front brake, uh-oh, missing pads (no prob), FD, check, RD, uh-oh, thumb shifter is messed up. Ah-ha, this bike is also a Shimano FFS, not desirable, but not a deal breaker if I can fix the shifter. This after all going to be a quick flip cheap campus bike after some hopefully minor repair. I spent a few minutes with the shifter and finally determined that it was partially dissassembled and I could save it, so off I went. Paid 20 bucks and as I'm wheeling it out to the car I notice a faint but familiar asterisk '*' mark/lines right behind the lug point where the head tube meets the top tube. There is a smaller similar set of lines behind the lug point on the down tube with just a slight bulge.... Then the kicker, how could I have been so blind, the fork .... THE FORK... the fork looks like the stays of a curly Hetchens, sort of beautiful, but it's not supposed to be that way. Sorry, no pics right now, but I'll try to post some when I get home.

So what do I do.

Option 1.) The wheels are chrome steel, but 27 1/4" so I could use them to put the 64cm Jetter frame I have in the barn back to running order, provided the FFS freewheel can be pulled off and a regular freewheel mounted.

Are the FFS Freewheels interchangeable with standard freewheels?

Option 2.) I can scare up a replacement fork from something I have lying around and still sell it as a cheap campus bike. I don't think the accident damage has to be the end of this frame, I don't see any buckling in the tubes.

Option 3.) Chalk it up as a learning experience and consider it spare parts. ok that part of that is a given. 20 bucks is not too much to be out, this is one of the things that I like about this hobby. There are some nice bars, some decent tires & tubes, a good front wheel (surprisingly), low-grade deraileurs, and some nice grips.

What to do?

What would you do?

Have you made a similar mistake... fess up?

Sounds like it's not a total loss, extra parts galore and maybe a frameset if you find a fork.

You're in good company :rolleyes:

I made a similar $15 mistake this weekend at a garage sale. Spotted a road bike with skinny tires, brazed on DT shifters and a forged crankset and thought "Hey, if nothing else thats a nice $15 crankset" Closer inspection revealed a Shimano 105 freehub laced to a Matrix rim, and a nice Mavic rim with eyelets up front...Drivetrain was all matching too: Suntour Alpha 3000.

So I ask about the bike and the lady says to me "Oh that thing is pretty messed up, I don't know if you'd want it". I said how about 15 bux and she was all about it. Rode home, got my car and drove down to pick it up and as I'm wheeling it to the car I hear *tink tink tink* from the wheels. Look and its a busted spoke. No big, I can work with that....ah crap its 2 ...no wait its 3 and OH F**** the Hub Flange is cracked :notamused:

So i've got a set of Suntour Alpha 3000 DR's and shifters, a nice Matrix and Mavic rim, and a 105 rear hub.....that came with an aluminum frame. :lol:

not a total loss, but it was a pretty big come down from what looked like a $15 bike that needed some new cables to a $15 parts purchase.

That FFW crank will fit any standard American BB shell and reverse any Astabula will replace a FFW crank. I picked up two Varsity's and one was missing the stem, seat and bars the other had a bent fork. CL deal and after my wife picked them up is when I found out about the fork... After some parts swapping I got one sellable bike. O well

I had a ffs with an English bb. I believe it should fit a standard bb shell. However, if you want to throw away a finely machined piece of gear, I think the rear wheel has a standard FW threading.

I hope you don't sell the rear freewheel to a fixed gear aficionado because the rear cogs do freewheel, albeit very stiffly as there are no bearings.

Thanks everyone,

I did not know that the FFS bb would swap with a ashtabula crank. Which threading will it work for? I believe Schwinn 1-piece bb's threaded differently than Huffy/Dept. Store? It's a pretty bike, but at this point I'm leaning toward using the wheelset on a different frame.

Myself, I would just redonate it to your favorite thrift store. I have done that a few times. Doesn't sound like any decent parts on that bike. Well, I guess you could salvage the fenders.

I have bought POS bikes solely for the seat, grips, that kind of stuff. And occasionally, I make a mistake. Rather than mess around with a mistake, I just donate it off and move on.

Often, I will pick up a crapper as part of a package deal (seller wants someone to take all of their bikes, one price, one deal). I have taken some of that crap right to the thrift store on the way home. No reason to even bring it home and unload it.

But I have a handful of mistakes right now. Some are not even worthy of donating. I curbed a couple of them.

We need pics Jimmy!

I had a Giant Schwinn World Tourist-a 1982, I believe. The FFS BB would swap with an English BB. Shimano made both kinds, Ashtabula and English.

Whoops, that's right the thread difference is actually ON the ashtabula crank, the cups in that system fit the BB and are just press in.... Does that mean that the FFS System also holds itself together in the unthreaded BB?

...pics in about 2 hours

Please do not redonate it to another thrift shop as it might end up as an accident on the road with another buyer not familiar with what too look out for. If the frame is indeed toast, do the right thing by just taking off all the re-usable parts and properly disposing (destroying) the dead frame.
The last seller might just also put it back on sale if you return it.
JMOs

Chombi

+1, if you donate it at least take it to a co-op and point out the frame damage. Or just keep the parts around, maybe you will find a cheap flip that is missing brake calipers.

Good point, I forgot about the frame damage. Co op is the best place for it and let them know of the damage.

Alrighty here are the pics:
I can't believe I missed these forks... Inconceivable!
http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f2...rldtourist.jpg

Here are the telltale cracks, can this frame ride again, or is it dangerous?
http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f2...ist_cracks.jpg

I don't see any serious bulging
http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f2...urist_lugs.jpg

These forks off this trashed Silk might work, or I have plenty dept. store forks around on the bike pile
http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f2...silk_forks.jpg

This Jetter is my size, but has seen better days, Heavy Hi-10 frame, I doubt I'll get to it any time soon
http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f2...tter_frame.jpg


So,

1) Fix Jetter

2) Swap in some forks

3) pick parts - frame to scrap pile

4) Something better that I haven't thought about

No Co-ops in my neck of the woods.

put a fork on it and sell it on Cl for $40 - then throw the other frame away (or send it to me so I can make a stool) and clear out some of your junk pile.

After sleeping on this, I'm feeling pretty confident that I don't want to send this frame back into the wild even with a new fork. The damage is there, even if it's not failing right now, it's there and that bothers me. This bike is parts, that frame is scrap metal. The question remains ...what to do with the parts.

After seeing the recent 'flipped handlebars' thread and the one before it I've been tempted to make a path racer from one of my old free spirit frames I have laying around. If I can transfer the FFS system and the wheels that could spiffy this bike up quite a bit. The Free spirit's spokes are pretty rusty and I'm not set up for old cottered cranks yet. I have to get a cotter pin press before I can service this type on a regular basis.

http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f2..._bikes_010.jpg

I've also been considering switching my Puch over to a cruiser/northroad bars style bike because the frame is a bit too small for me but I feel an attachment to the bike. The bars could be worthy of that project.
http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f2...s/puch_cav.jpg

Or I could swap the wheels out with this Fuji mixte that I'm planning on selling and keep the alloy wheels from that for a bike that I am riding. When I got the Fuji it looked like this:
http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f2...fujifront2.jpg

But I pulled a seat and handlebars from an old 3-speed Ross and now it looks like this:
http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f2...egro_front.jpghttp://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f2...legro_side.jpg

Given that the Fuji doesn't have a brooks, and the cranks are a chrome plated steel affair, I'm not feeling that I'll get very much for it. It seems the steel wheels wouldn't hurt this bike much as a townie, but I also have another set of steel wheels off a Miyata that I could swap too. I think the tires that are on the Fuji complement it better than blackwalls would.

Yikes. I'm all over the map with this, lots of possibilities.

But the Puch has a nice crankset. Why not replace a cottered crankset with that FFS?

Perhaps I'm not clear, which wouldn't be surprising by my rambling. I would only use the bars on the Puch, changing the crankset on the Puch would be silly.

Follow-up:

Well the first batch of lemonaide has been made. I have been planning on giving a bike to a friend who has been interested in riding but bought a Huffy mtn bike a couple of years ago. Not entirely surprising, he is not satisfied with his modern-day huffy, so I decided I would give him my Motobecane. Actually he picked a similarly equipped Schwinn Sprint out of my parts frames, but the bike needed more than I could give right away, so he got the Motobecane. Maybe sometime in the future we'll set up the Schwinn for him, but I almost suspect once he rides the moto for a while he'll like that better.

Here is a pic of it about 3 years ago when I was trying to ride it. Note the bmx layback seat post(rigged on with old innertubes for a shim) and the long stem, I think I have pedal extenders on it too. Obviously the bike was too small, even so, I could feel the quality in the ride. Not the highest end Moto out there, but there's still plenty of good points and one does not look a gift horse in the mouth. I got the bike from the original owner who bought it in '78 I believe.
http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f2...aneandTrek.jpg

Since I was planning on putting new cables on it, I asked him what type of bar he preferred. Turns out he wanted cruiser style bars, so the WorldTourist gave it's bars to the project. Next I rememebered that the front tire had a dent in the rim, so I transplanted that from the WorldTourist as well. Then the tires were missmatched, so I put a new one on the back. It turned out rather well, and I think my friend is going to get some good use out of it.


http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f2...uiser_bars.jpg


http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f2..._bars_back.jpg

hack saw the frame in half so no-one gets hurt in the future and donate it to the co-op for parts.....$20 is $20....move on to the next bike.....

There's no co-op near me--I wish there was--but the parts will live on in other projects. I will make more lemonaide. I'm pretty happy with how the Motobecane turned out for my friend, we went riding a bit last night and it's a good fit.