1955 Huffy/Raleigh Sportsman FINISHED!

Sweet Fancy Moses, this has been a long project! I started this back at the end of November, which makes it just shy of a full five months. Here's what I did:

-CLEAN, CLEAN, CLEAN

-replaced crappy saddle with less-crappy used Brooks B72

-replaced stuck stem/bars after sawing off original

-replaced badly pitted and gouged crank axle

-replaced crank cotters

-replaced missing hub hardware and shifter cable

-replaced tires/tubes/rim tape

-replaced brake shoes

-replaced grips

-cleaned and repacked headset, bottom bracket, hubs

-sanded, primed, painted fenders, top tube, chain stays

-touch up and clear coat entire bike

The photos above are actually a bit disingenuous, since the chain guard isn't attached due to the chain rubbing on it terribly ("grinding" is really more the word). I was a bit worried about that from the beginning because of the wear patterns on the inside of the guard when I bought the bike, but I thought they might just be from years of neglect. I can't quite figure out why it's rubbing, actually, since the attachment points on the frame don't leave a lot of room for interpretation or adjustment. It must be on correctly, but it still rubs. Still working on that one.

Otherwise, it runs very well. It's very comfortable and smooth and surprisingly light. I had some trouble with the rear sprocket, the teeth of which had been misshaped due either to a too-tight or poorly maintained chain. When under way, the chain sounded like it was grinding through a poorly-adjusted derailer, which clearly wouldn't do. I swapped out the sprocket from the Columbia, and in the process, discovered that the sprocket on the Huffy had been put on backwards. I put it on the Columbia the right way to see if it would run any better, and it did! So, the Huffeigh sprocket is now working just fine on the Columbia, and the Columbia sprocket is working just fine on the Huffeigh. Thank you, Sturmey-Archer, for making such brilliantly-interchangeable parts.

I had planned on this being a cargo/grocery bike, but it turned out to be entirely too gentlemanly to be a beast of burden, so the Wald wire pannier rack I bought is now on the Columbia, which has been re-dubbed the grocery bike, while the Huffeigh will fill the Columbia's previous function as general run-around bike.