Sigurdd50

my gal stopped at the dig and save and found two bikes:
A perfectly working specialized rockhopper (just needs air, grease, and cleaning)
and a kids sized Schwinn Caliente (pics below)
Both for ONE DOLLAR EACH

Her son (eleven) is a short little fellow, but he wants a cooler bike. a bike with 'speeds.'
Looks like the Caliente will be a winter project (the other bike will be hung in the garage until he is big enough to ride it)

Question: The front wheel (fortunately) on the Schwinn has several busted spokes and looks to be way wobbly. It is 24" x 1.25. Is this a standard wheel that can be had at most bike shops?

This bike has a couple odd things:
the crank looks to be an old style ashtabula
The bottome bracket almost acts like it is a freewheel; if you back peddle, it clicks like a freewheel, and the chain does not rotate back towards the RD. Is this correct?
And... it has the biggest frickin' rack on the back. Almost looks like the kid who rode it was a brainiac (needs a big rack for all those books) or he was sent to the store to haul groceries.
Does have the original seat.

what age do you suppose this is?

anyway... here are some pics and any input would be cool. I rekon I'll just dig in and take it apart and regrease.
By the way... eet is heavy!

Scooper

It's probably late seventies vintage. Here's the 1979 Schwinn catalog page describing the "Schwinn 24" Wheel Caliente", but it doesn't appear in the 1980 catalog.

It's got the electro-forged frame, so yes, it'll be heavy (and also virtually indestructable).

In 1979 it sold for $162.95. At $1.00, you got a helluva bargain.

zbicyclist

Find the serial number and compare it to this listing: https://oldroads.com/sh_sn.asp

What you have on this Schwinn Caliente sounds like a Shimano Positron II drive system. I have a woman's Caliente from the late 1970's with such a system. As usual, Sheldon Brown provides information:
https://www.sheldonbrown.com/gloss_p.html#positron

Positron was an early indexes system, before Shimano developed SIS (and brifters, and ...). Technically, it seems to work OK even after all these years, although it's probably heavier (you have a whole bunch of extra ball bearings around the bottom bracket) and I would imagine getting your pants leg caught in the chain would be more of a problem than normal. One advantage of this system is that you don't have to be pedaling to shift gears. You have to be moving, but you don't have to be pedaling. Note that if you are moving but not pedaling the chain and the front chainwheel will continue to move -- that's the hallmark of the Positron system. Of course, this means the rear wheel's gear cluster is NOT a freewheel, so don't assume it's supposed to be a freewheel and try to fix it!

It's hard to tell about extra weight, since the Schwinns from that era are quite heavy. Another poster was right, though -- they are practically indestructible.

One theory about the Positron is that it failed for marketing reasons. Shimano introduced this on their low-end systems, figuring that it would be most helpful to casual riders and that high-end guys would be fine with friction shifting. The high end guys looked down at people who were too dumb to use friction shifting.

So, when Shimano RE-introduced indexed shifting, they did so from the high end down: the result was that high end guys looked down on those still using friction (and continue to do so even today, as I find out when I go for a ride with my perfectly fine friction shifters). The result was that they had both an engineering and a marketing success.

Is an old Caliente a good bike? My daughter's is a bike she found in a junk heap and she and I together fixed it up to ridable condition, so it's special to us. However, during her college years she had 4 bikes stolen and only this bright green Schwinn Caliente remained untouched, so draw your own conclusions about its market value

zbicyclist

You should be able to get something that will work. There are still 24 inch bikes sold. Here, for example, is a 24 inch bicycle available at Wal-mart for $73 -- with dual suspension!
https://www.walmart.com/catalog/produ...A133073%3A5304
(I'm certainly NOT recommending this bike!)

You probably don't want the exact thing, since Schwinn in those days had a proprietary system and it's hard to find tires for these rims anymore. The tires will probably say S-6 or S-7 or something else on the side (almost certainly something else, because those aren't 24 inch sizes -- where these S-4?).

Sigurdd50

so the serial is DP556357

which would indicate... April of '78?
okay
well, if I can find a replacement front rim/wheel, I may give it a go. It's a heavy beast, but I rekon that an energetic kid will overlook that -- especially if it works.

Scooper

Yes; very good. The "D" is April, and the "P" is 1978.

As You Like It

I would not worry about the weight of the bike so long as everything functions. At that age, most kids are pretty wiry and have a lot of energy. I used to flog an old Continental up and down the roads when I was around 12, and, *ahem* I was a little girl. I'd have been dead chuffed to get hold of a bike like that one, which would have been the perfect size!

I think it's a really neat bike, and I hope you can find a wheel for it. I'd leave the rack for him. He may well end up using it for dumpster-diving purposes or for hauling school stuff, or goodness only knows what else.

Little Darwin

Positron derailleurs seem interesting, but they seem to have a bad rep. I am looking forward to using mine when I finish my Suburban clean-up.

If you have mechancal issues with the rear deraillleur and it is Positron II, PM me and I will ship you one of mine. NOS that I got from ebay (I got 3 for under $15 shipped). In case you haven't noticed yet, the shifting cable is solid... since it has to push & pull.

Just in case you are inclined, there is nothing to keep you from moving to a different derailleur.

number6

Positron benifits greatly if one uses the made for Dura-Ace hanger alignment tool, the mount has to be aligned to the dropout and axle to work best, kind of overkill but made many a customer happy by doing so decades ago.

Get some replacement spokes first, and or relace the wheel with stainless spokes, I bet something fell on the wheel and broke the spokes, those rims were tolerant of abuse, heavy double wall units but very repairable.

Positron was kind of Shimano's Corvair.

Hey, my first car was a Corvair, even spun it out on PCH, and lived to tell the tale.

seely

For a replacement wheel, if you want something of quality a good option is recumbent wheels... they use narrow 24" quality rims in many cases.

Pompiere

I found a Caliente 24" for my daughter a couple years ago at a flea market. It is a 1988, made in Taiwan. Her bike does not have the front freewheel, but has steel cotterless cranks and a lugged frame.
I wanted to caution you about the rims. The original tires were 24 x 1 1/4, but the Schwinn shop sold me a 24 x 1 1/4/ 1 3/8. These fit very loosely on the rims, in fact, one blew off shortly after mounting. I found out recently that there is another 24 x 1 1/4 lightweight tire that has a slightly smaller diameter that may be the correct size for this rim. The original tires were very narrow, like a 27 x 1 1/8, but the replacements were more like a middleweight tire, and I think they were sized for Schwinn's propriatary wheels. Once I got them seated exactly in the center, we haven't had any problems and she liked the Hybrid look with fatter tires and flat bars. Since your bike is from a different timeframe, you might not have the same problem.
I think the big rack is just a matter of squeezing an adult sized rack onto a kid's bike.

zbicyclist

A Schwinn shop should have known better ... but it's only the old guys in the old Schwinn shops that accurately remember about the old proprietary system.

For an informative and humorous article about tire sizes, see https://www.sheldonbrown.com/tire_sizing.html

seely

Hey now, I'm 23 and know that stuff. Does that make me old or just a nerdy grease monkey?

If I were replacing the wheelset, I would just go with a more standardized 24" wheel provided the brakes will allow for it... I don't recall there being a huge difference between a 24x1 1/4 and a standard 24, but its not like I see them that often either. You'll open yourself up to a lot more quality tire options.

zbicyclist

Wise beyond your years?

Sigurdd50

Hey had to bump this one!

I finally got a Fixed gear project off my miserable old bike repair stand (memo: I HAVE to get a new bike stand... a MODERN stand). Then this weekend at a junk bike sale, I found a Schwinn Sprint or Spirit, 24" kids sized road bike w/24" wheels, for 5 bucks. The front wheel fits the Caliente perfect (the Caliente wheel had multiple severed spokes and needs rebuilding... but for 5 bucks, I'll use this wheel and toss the rusted other frame out).
Anyway... I put on the wheel, put the Caliente on the crappy bike repair stand, dosed the gunky rusted chain w/ WD-40, and gave the cranks a turn. turned a bit stiff but turned. Wheels are pretty true. I Then tried the rear shift lever. Click. Click. Click. Wooo ... this thing works fine and it IS basically an Indexed system... and shifts perfectly into each cog. AND you CAN shift gears w/o having to pedal! KRAZY! The 'Freewheel' crank is nuts, but it works.

I have a spare chin from my fixie project. Repack the hubs, and maybe see about getting in the crank to grease that too.... I rekon that might be touch-and-go... getting into a freewheel crank to repack bearings....

And the kid is jazzed about having a geared bike for the spring

FLBandit

I found one of those for my daughter awhile back. However hers has a different crank set-up. It's a standard looking 3 piece job. She loves the bike and it runs like a charm. I clocked her at 20 mph one time! I'll have to look up the serial number and compare it to the list. You might find wheels at a used bike dealer. We have one local who deals in everything from Roadmasters to vintage Colnagos.

DynamicD74

Hi! I know Trek makes a kid's bike with 24 inch wheels, so hopefully, you won't have a problem finding wheels for yours. I had a 24" Lime Green 1974 Schwinn Varsity when I was a kid....very cool bike! Hope your young friend enjoys his caliente'!

Sigurdd50

just to point out the details... we were able to find a similar Schwinn at a bike sale for $5, the front wheel is a perfect fit, so we bought it and pitched the rest of the bike (which was mostly rusted, Huret junk derailleur, bent pedals, and a kind of mixte frame to boot, which the boy would likely not like (the idea is to get him on a 'geared' bike that looks like a cool road bike)

In the coming weeks I'll pull the rusted chain and replace with one I have, and pull the hubs to re-grease. As noted, the odd ashtabula-freewheel crank will be my biggest challenge. It is a bit sticky and could use regreasing