Thought Sausage

A couple weeks ago, I snagged this on Ebay and will begin restoring the bike in earnest over the course of the coming year. For those of you not into the whole 'clicking on links' thing, that's a black 1971 John Deere Men's 10 Speed Bike. I'll be logging the progress (or lack thereof, depending on how you look at it). This is my first REAL restore (as in, taking a bike from abject travesty to potentially-pristine shape).

The Bike:

In its day, if you wanted to buy a John Deere bike, you didn't go to the bike shop (as far as I know at least). You went to the farm implement shop where these were sold right along other John Deere products. I guess it was some sort of relationship marketing device. Anyway, this, along with a women's version, and later more cruiser 5 speed models were produced up through the mid 70's.

The reason I've been searching for this bike is that the women's version is quite common, but the men's 10 speed has become exceedingly hard to find. If it's anything like the Schwinn Stingrays from yesteryear, it's because boys/men tend to beat the shit out of their bikes, whereas girls/women tend to take care of them more.

My interests in this bike are A. old 10 speeds from this vintage are just rad pieces of art in and of themselves and B. The John Deere 10 Speed is a bit of an oddity more than it is/was a high performance bike. So I figure if I'm going to try my hand at bike restoration, why not start with an oddball?

Anyway, I toddled out to Oswego with Marley 'n Matthew in tow to pick the thing up. The guy was nice enough...said he'd gotten it in an estate sale and would have thrown it out with the trash if his wife had her way. He didn't know much about the history (or didn't say) but it was pretty obvious the thing must have been left to rot in a barn or something for the past 15-20 years. The rear derallier is missing. No matter. I figure in for a penny in for a pound right?

My initial thoughts:

Well there's a nice helping of surface rust that looks like it'll come off with a fair amount of WD-40, Steel Wool and rust sealant. I set about to tinkering at the chrome on the lower fork and endcaps and they shined up pretty easy. That part should suffice. The decals are in AMAZING shape considering the condition of the bike. Before picking up the bike, my thoughts were that I needed to track down somebody who could either re-produce those or a parts place that (for some bizarre reason) still sells them. Now I'm starting to wonder how feasible it'd be to re-spray the frame without touching the decals. I'm probably out of luck on the actual John Deere Lettering, but the trim on the fork and the sizing/manufacturer decal on the vertical post are immaculate. The actual headplate with the 70's John Deere logo (where the deere has the big antlers and is facing downward instead of up) is in tact and looking awesome. The bike also has the reflectors intact. Nice.

On the downside, I have no fucking clue what to do about this derailler situation (I can't even spell the word for christs sake). Marley's landlord has this Free Spirit from roughly the same vintage which has a usable one on it. He said we could help ourselves to that, plus he's got 3 other bikes (of which I know nothing about) he says I can have. So hopefully there's a cadaver somewhere that can give itself to the cause. I'm planning on fixing up the Free Spirit in the garage so Marley has something to bang around town in and leave at the train station if needs be, so if I can keep that one hanging on the wall together that'd be great (plus it's done up in that pukey-70's yellow/phlegm color scheme and who'd wanna see something that fantastic go to waste?).

That rear brassy lookin chain guard on the rear tire? Yeah that's not brass. After some steel-woolin' it revealed itself to be of chrome origin. I can see some serious re-chroming will need to occur on that piece. I'm going to replace the seatpost outright as that's completely and utterly pointless to try to re-chrome/polish.

Other than that, it's got a few spokes out, so I think I'll just have all but the most egregiously rusted ones replaced. It'll get a whole re-cabling for the drive-train and the brakes. the chain will get replaced, and it'll need new brake pads (and a new brake caliper on the rear left side).

I'm a little nervous about tracking down parts from this vintage as the manufacturer of this bike clearly didn't share parts with Schwinn or Free Spirit (the Sears brand). I'll decide how much of a purist I want to be about it when I get into replacing those parts.

As it turns out, my buddy James (who is not-unlike Morgan Freeman in Shawshank Redemption...he can get you ANYTHING) knows a guy who is starting a vintage bike restoration shop in Wicker Park and will paint a bike frame for 70 bucks. He also does re-chroming. With any luck, he's also going to have a line on where the brake caliper and rear derailler can be obtained.

My next step is to take care of as much surface rust as possible. A lot of it as pretty offensive and will need to be taken down to the metal and re-chromed (especially the crank and rear chainguard thingy). I have it in parts in Marley's garage at the moment. As soon as I get word back from the Wicker Park guy, I'll start plotting out what parts i can afford to start fixing immediately.

Welp, work on the 10 speed has begun in earnest. I have it all torn apart, which counts for something. I have yet to connect with the dude in Wicker Park who restores these things. I have a race this weekend and we're planning on a multi-day ride next weekend (on my Trek touring bike mind you...not this thing), so I my time for TLC with this thing is somewhat limited. No matter. Rome wasn't built in a day right?

(as an aside, I was in Moline Illinois this weekend and while scoring various John Deere pieces of propaganda, I came to find out there is in fact a surplus leftover of these bikes. In other words, you could theoretically buy a brand new 1971 John Deere 10 Speed if you have the right connections...but what'd be the fun in that?)

So when I picked this up, I actually thought that back guard was brass. Some steel wool action revealed that it is a chrome piece (although in serious need of some help). Those spokes are in pretty sorry shape (you'll note one is missing entirely). I don't really know any efficient way to shine them up. Any ideas? Obviously one will need to be replaced and that will sort of ruin the patina effect the others have. I'll see what he'd charge just to replace all of them (I imagine it'd border on prohibitively expensive on the premise that it'd just be stupid to sink that kind of cash into a rim like this). Luckily I have a line on some tires like those in the pic, so I can keep the side-wall action. Nice.

So this actually wasn't in as sorry of shape as I thought it'd be. The actual crank is pretty much ready to roll just as it is. The gears and the drive-train is another story (You'll note the chain is still there...I didn't have a bolt cutter handy). All that will need to be re-chromed.

So as you can see, the frame desperately needs a fresh coat of black paint unless I'm going to try to pawn the scheme off as gray. However, as mentioned, the decals themselves are perfect...not really faded at all. I haven't tracked down a surplus place that still has these yet, but to be honest, I haven't really started looking either

So the handlebars are actually in pretty good shape. The brakes will need to be tightened, but all in all, save for a few minor spots, this is fairly usable.

Another decal specimen. This one is crucial...what with the Made in Taiwan moniker. This bike was originally more of a matte/satin black, and I'm thinking of spraying it in a more modern glossy black (none of that metal flake though...as that'd just be silly).

So contrary to what people have suspected, this isn't actually a Brooks saddle. It's just a brown vinyl thing. Looks pretty good, but as you can see that seatpost is almost a lost cause. I mean really...why bother when these things are a dime-a-dozen?

So that's where things stand here. I oiled/cleaned up that Free Spirit in Marley's garage. Aside from a new set of tires, we're pretty much ready to dance with that one. Pics forthcoming.