New Vintage Style Walmart Cruiser

Here is the actual Wallmart address.
http://www.walmart.com/ip/26-Columbia-1937-3-Star-Men-s-Cruiser-Bike/39801995

We have an intentional lul in business for the next 2 weeks, non-bike things need doing and it's end of season football!

I haven't done a 'board tracker' look bike yet so what the heck, I have one last HS 142 49cc 4-stroke with 7G and that bike is begging for a 3-speed 4-stroke shifter upgrade.

The new 3-speed wheelset and SBP jackshaft base and BB pretty much alleviate my concerns about the bike itself and that should be far easier to make the tank real.

Guess we'll see after Super Bowl ;-}
 
Got the 1937 Columbia in today.

I just got it out of the box to check out the 'tank'.

1937parts1.jpg


It looks spiffy enough until you dig into it.

It is just to 2 formed sheet metal plates that fit together via one metal screw at the top between the spit top bar, and 2 screws in from each side to a bracket screwed in to the frame via big cutouts on both halves in the tin for the brackets to be on the inside, kind of like a chain guard mount.

1937parts2.jpg


There isn't a way to seal that up and make it a gas tank, but it is within a mm or two of allowing it to be packed with 18650 LI cells to make an electric.

1937parts4.jpg


I'm not going to **** with electric on this build, I have a couple of high end electric's I need to move, but I now have the perfect template to get a gas tank made that will fit right in there I think and just put a direct drive 4-stroke on it.

I'll let you know how it turns out when I get to it.
 
Sweet. Using the fake tank to make a pattern for a real tank is exactly what I was thinking for that bike. I can't wait to see it done. I Hope you keep the same color scheme.
 
When I first saw the bike, I thought the Columbia Built area was just one sheet of metal, painted on both sides, but now that I see that it‘s three dimensional, you could bend those two metal straps down horizontally and screw them up into a wooden box that you’d build the existing sides around. Then, find a plastic container to put on the inside You’d be building the mock tank around a wooden box with a ½ gallon plastic container inside. Easy and inexpensive. I might then build a mock gas cap that pulls out that unscrews the real plastic gas container underneath it. ???

That is really cool! It would turn heads…..The question is, is the bike any good?

I’ll be engineering that in my head all weekend…….
 
Nice choice! I'm looking forward to seeing how it turns out. If I had to pick my poison of how to make a tank; it would probably be out of sheet brass. Years ago tanks were made out of brass and solder or am I wrong. Menards or a hardware store may have some. Perhaps a local radiator shop would have a suggestion of what to use as a fill cap assembly. Brass may be a faster build than fiberglass and leave more time for the xbox.
 
Twitch you have a redirect virus on your computer. Pocket Staton sells a 64oz fuel tank if you need one.
 
Twitch you have a redirect virus on your computer. Pocket Staton sells a 64oz fuel tank if you need one.[/QUOT

I drove over to Wally World to take another look at the Columbia bike. It was $150 sitting there on the floor and I noticed the front wheel was about 5 degrees off from the vertical frame! Crap!! I seriously doubted that I wanted it anymore... then, I saw one more down the line, so I looked at it and it was perfectly inline. So, I was back to liking it again. As I was talking to the sales guy, I told him it had a scratch on the top bar. So, they gave me a 10% discount, and I took out a Walmart credit card and got another $25 off. So, I figure, if the bike falls apart, I should get my $110 out of it.

Darwin, the Staton tank is the right price, but the wrong shape. The beauty of making it out of fiberglass is that you form the tank to the exact size and shape you want and for about the same price $30, you have a perfectly custom fitted tank. I will install a wooden floor, mount the tank on it and slap those nice, painted Columbia sides around it. I just haven't figured out how to get to the filler cap. I thought it might be cool, after widening the sides about an inch or so, to just use the area in the middle for the tank and if I could just open the side (to fill the tank, the area behind and ahead of the fiberglass tank could be used to hold bottles of oil on one end and tools on the other. In other words, if I open one side to fill the tank, there wouldn't be a visible tank cap..... but, I'm still ironing out the details.........

Many thanks to KC for turning me on to this idea..... :unsure:

If anyone has any suggestions for how to open the side panel..... that would be very welcome... I have no idea! :rolleyes:

Jim
 
Back
Top