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1948 Sunshine Waterloo Co bike
Hello everyone,
My 16 year old son is buying the bike noted in the subject line. He would like to remove the pedal brakes and add hand brakes. Is this even possible? If it is what should I be looking to get. I have attached a picture of the ad. The bike looks like it has all or most of it's original parts including the fenders.
I think he would have a hard time putting caliper brakes on that bike. If you could find them drum brakes would work as they came with them also. But i must ask (Why) does he want hand brakes. Bike looks pretty original and hard to find in that condition.
He would like to mount a motor on it but he may change his mind once he sees what a gem that he has.
Hello Teke14,
Of course it can be done. I suppose the question is how much trouble or expense would your son be willing to go to? At the very least, you will need to respoke the back wheel and replace the coaster brake hub with a freewheel hub or Three-Speed hub. The Three-Speed hub would probably involve spreading the rear end to accomodate the greater width required to fit the hub in the rear stays (I personally would not do this). You must ensure there is a hole drilled in the crown of the fork, and hope that the fender brace in the rear stays going down from theseat is also round and can accomodate a hole fror the rear caliper brake bolt. If not, your options atre limited. The old Philips centre-pull brakes that were sometimes added to CCM Flyers and Road Racers did not require holes in either the fork or seat stay bridge to mount them. However, they are a bit tricky to find and the brake rubbers hardened up on them years ago so that most of them do not work very well now. Another way to go is with hubs with internal expanding brakes, prreferably made for only a single freewheel. There were several companies that made these hubs in England, France, and the U.S.. You might find some Sturmey Archer hubs, B.S.A. hubs, or Schwinn hubs. These are cable operated and can be very effective. I hope that your son is mechanically inclined, or otherwise very resourceful. Thiswill not be an easy job.
Good Luck with It!
John Williamson
Thank you so much John for the information. This is his first vintage bike and he had some ideas about the brakes but your write-up has changed his mind. I think that he is going to try and restore this and put a motor on a different bike.
For only being 16 he is very mechanically inclinded and has some very different ideas which is a great thing.
Peter
So my son is now in the process of the restoration and he is looking for a bearing kit for the crank. Are these kits easy to find or would he have to rebuild this one?
What is wrong with the crank bearings?
I have never seen anything defined as a "bearing kit" for a bicycle. CCM used caged bearings that were filled up with standard size ball bearings and Sunshine may have done the same (It has been more than 20 years since I took apart a Sunshine crank). In the event that the cages have disintegrated or are rusted, the whole assembly can just be replaced with the appropriate number of correct size ball bearings that are placed in grease for assembly. If the bearing cages are good, but you suspect the bearings are not, you can just replace the bearings with new bearings fitted into the cage. Standard size ball bearings should be fairly easy to obtain. At one time CCM sold both the bearings and the bearing cages and Sunshine probably did the same, however, like so many other things, they are both gone now.
John Williamson
If the bearing cups and cones are worn or pitted, that is a different matter. Please let us know what the problem is.
John Williamson