Polishing Bearing Cones

You'll probably think I'm crazy for doing this, and that I should just go buy new parts. Sometimes that just isn't an option. My Schwinn Traveler had some very worn bearing cones (maybe the wheel was submerged, and then ridden for a while without grease to protect the bearings):

It was bad enough that I would hear a very noticeable rumbling sound if I spun the wheel off the ground. I was debating re-lacing the wheel to a new hub, but I thought I'd try this instead. I pulled the axle out, and tightened the bearing cone and locknut on one end of it. Then I used a drill to spin the axle while I held sandpaper up to the bearing surface:

I used several different grits, starting with coarse emery cloth, then 400 grit, then 1000. It took a while to clean up the pitting since these cones are made of pretty hard steel. My last step was polishing the cones with my fancy metal polish:

Now they look like Deore XT bearing cones:

The wheel spins quietly now, so I guess this worked. Time will tell if they start pitting again (probably not, I used some decent grease). If the bearing cups inside the hub were badly pitted too then I would just replace the hub, but in this case they were fine. Plus I didn't have to spend any money. Cheers.

Schwinn Traveler Rebuild

A couple years ago I showed how I used drain cleaner to dissolve an aluminum seat post that was hopelessly stuck inside an old Schwinn Traveler frame. After dealing with that nonsense, I built a lightweight set of wheels for that bike, and gave it to a good friend of mine. I always liked how it handled, it was extremely agile and fast. Anyway, I found another identical bike at a garage sale this summer, and this time I'm keeping it for myself. This one needs some repairs (of course):

The bike was missing a cassette, but came with another rear hub with a freewheel mounted to it. I'm guessing the previous owner tried to fix the bike, but gave up on it when they figured out that freewheels don't work on cassette hubs. The freehub body itself would spin freely in both directions, so either the pawls inside it were broken or just stuck. Time to deal with it:

Axle and ball bearings removed:

After removing the dustcap, I flooded the freehub body with motor oil. After a few minutes it started working normally again. Now I can repack the hub bearings and install a new cassette:

 

Time to do something about the dork-tastic handlebar setup. This one has steel brake lever extensions, a head light screwed onto a reflector bracket, an extra reflector bracket on the front brake caliper, and worst of all - foam handlebar grips (yuck). I removed the brake extension levers first:

 

Next I stuck an allen key inside the brake lever to loosen them from the clamp on the handlebar:

Then I slid those old disintegrating grips off with soapy water:

Now it's time to remove the dork light. I unscrewed the handlebar stem, then removed the top nut from the headset:

With the headset disassembled for cleaning, this was a perfect opportunity to remove that extra bracket too:

The bottom bracket is next. The lock ring came off easily, but the adjustable cup on the left side put up a fight. I had to break out the penetrating oil (I'm much more used to using this stuff on rusty cars):

 

Since I don't have the proper pin spanner for this kind of cup, I had to improvise a bit:

That worked. After cleaning and repacking the dried out bearings, I could reassemble the bottom bracket (with a hammer and punch, again. I need to stop misplacing my normal tools):

Crank reinstalled:

I also repacked the headset bearings and reinstalled the fork and front brake:

Now the handlebars and brake levers can go back on:

After reconnecting the brake cables and putting on some proper handlebar tape, here's where I'm at now:

This bike handles as well as the last Traveler I had. I love these late 80s cro-moly Schwinns. They are incredibly light, agile, and they usually have indexed shifters. Unfortunately this one was in pretty bad mechanical condition (wobbly wheels, gummed up freehub, pitted bearing cones on the front axle, and missing a cassette), but it's back to normal now.