I played around a bit with trying to see what could make this thing pull so hard, what I know so far:
- Its not the tires or wheels, these wheels work fine on another bike, and another bike's wheels still pull to the right on this bike.
- The frame is not bent, I can check the frame across the head tube and seat tube to measure the rear triangle, both dropouts are within .013" of each other. better than the bike that doesn't pull.
- The fork is not bent, I have a Park fork alignment jig, the blades are 100% equal front to back and perfectly aligned. I also tried moving the blades to the right, a move that most say should correct the pull to the right but it made no difference at all.
- The headset is not worn, not dimpled or pitted. I rotated the cups, cleaned and repacked all the bearings replacing all the balls to be safe. Plus, I swapped the cups with another bike that don't have any issues.
- The headtube and seat tube are parallel, looking across the headtube, it is level with the seat tube.
- There is a very slight improvement in reducing the tightness of the headset, (leaving a bit of play in the headset). With the bearings tight, the fork still rotates perfectly fine 360 degrees, so I don't get the impression there's any bind in the fork.
In an effort to understand what could make it pull, I intentionally set the rear wheel off center in the other bike, it made no real difference in how it rode. It didn't make it pull.
That frame is obviously bent, the frame on the bike that pulls checks out just fine.
I do notice that when I'm on this bike I feel like I'm looking down the right side of the bike for some reason, regardless of which side of the road or road crown I'm riding on. The bike struggles to make left turns, even if I lean the bike into the left turn, its still pulling right, when the bike is leaning left, the bars still want to turn right. It will lean and turn right fine, with the pull helping it turn. If I pick the bike up by the top tube, the front wheel stays straight, there's no flop to one side or the other.On the center kickstand, the front wheel will not sit straight, it flops all the way right and won't stay to the left. On the side stand, it sits normal. It feels like the front wheel always wants to turn 90 degrees to the right when riding.
The tires are not in the best of shape, they're 70+ years old but they hold air and serve the purpose. Like I said before, swapping in another set of wheels and tires off my other bike doesn't change the pull.
I realize I'm too big for the bike, but I'm too big for nearly all bikes. If an old balloon tire bike can't take a big man, what can?
This isn't about my size, its about getting this bike sorted so I can at least ride it around the block once in a while. It was my father's bike, he had it as a teen and kept it all these years and handed it down to me. When the time comes for me to pass it on, I'd like it to be a ridable bike.