Schwinn Caliente Finished

Hello and Welcome. I have finished the Caliente project, except for the paint touch-up. The weather has turned cold and I will have to wait for it to warm up a little. As for the "finish pics" I went ahead and photographed it (as is). It still looks pretty good. But a little paint touch-up will go a long way towards making it look better. I hope to be doing that real soon.

Above: I found these levers laying around the shop and decided to polish them up and use them in place of the generic levers it came with. These are no doubt off one of the 5 or 6 Continentals I have re-built in the past 20 months. I still might up-grade the brakes to some vintage center-pulls. But if I do that, I will want to up-grade the wheels too.....

Above: I have no idea which bike these pedals came off of. I found them in the pedal box. The original pedals were very dull with no chrome. I decided it needed a little bling!

Above: This is the bike I was saving this Specialized (take-off) saddle for. You might remember it from the red Varsity mock-up. It is quite comfortable and still very sporty looking. I would have used it on the Varsity, but I was really trying to keep the cost down. Most of my customers are college students and many have a very tight bike budget. So I like to keep a few less expensive bikes around.

Above: Shown with new Kenda 27 x 1-1/4 Skin-Walls mounted on the original wheels.
I don`t like the way the skin-walls photograph. They look like white-walls. I think
I will be going back to using the Kenda Gum-Walls in the future. I polished-up and trued the wheels. I did find one little ding. I marked it with a Sharpie marker and
banged it back with a ball-peen hammer. I have a trick for doing that (hammering out the ding) I`ll have to do a post about that some time.

Above: I like to cut my cable housings with a cutting wheel on a high-speed drill.
I insert the little nail quickly after cutting to prevent the end from melting shut.
I sometimes mark the spot to be cut with a small piece of tape. After I make the cut I trim the end with a small pair of scissors. The wheel will also cut through housing and cable together. If you have a long universal cable with housing, you can cut it in the middle and use both ends. Of course you will want to measure first.

OK, Here are some pics of the finished (but not touched-up) project.

I found some NOS gum hoods for my next project a Raleigh "Technium." I paid a little too much for them. However they are a perfect match. And I want this Raleigh to be as close to perfect as I can make it. I should have a progress report soon about the Technium. Till next time Ride Safe and remember to Always RESCUE,RESTORE&RECYCLE Cheers,Hugh