Table of Contents

Background

I just wanted to give a small update on my 1973 Schwinn Varsity that I’ve been working on.

Light Mounts

As mentioned in the previous post, I got some little silicon wrap-on lights for the bike at night. However, there’s not many convenient places to put them on the bike, especially in the rear. To fix this, I designed some new mounts to replace the current reflectors.

New mounts
These were the new mounts I designed in Solidworks. Front mount is on the left, and the rear mount on the right.

After convincing a friend to 3D print them for me, I got them installed with no problems. They fit perfectly as designed.

Front mount with light
Front mount with light
Rear mount with light
Rear mount with light. This is huge improvement for rear visibility compared to before.

It all works great, and they don’t vibrate much in motion. The only thing is that the rear mount needs to be printed with 100% infill, as the bolt on the seat post applies a lot of compressive pressure to the part when tightened.

Painting Over Phone Number

Also as mentioned in the previous post, I wanted to paint over the phone number scratched into the frame. For this, I got basic 80 grit sandpaper and a can of red glossy Krylon spray paint. I took the bike outside and sanded off the existing paint along with as much of the phone number etched in as I could. I couldn’t get the seat off for the life of me, so I ended up just turning the seat 90 degrees out of the way and putting a plastic bag over it. I was also nearly out of painter’s tape, so I used cheap duct tape as a mask. I put a quick coat of paint on then chained the bike to the nearest bike rack and let it dry.

Repainting the frame
It might be ugly, but it was effective.

I put one more coat of paint on before removing all the masking. Overall, it came out well, however the bike is more orange than I had thought when at Lowe’s buying red spray paint. It doesn’t match well in color or in quality as the rest of the bike’s paint is much rougher and more orange-y.

Finished repainting
This is ugly but it serves the purpose I wanted.

You can see above that I tried to sand the edge of the new paint a tad so it blended marginally better than a solid line of a different color.

Conclusion

I’m really happy, and plan on riding this until the wheels fall off, because damn are new bikes expensive. Yes, the bike is old, tired, and ugly. But damnit, I fixed it myself, I learned a lot, it rides pretty well now, and was the best price, free.