WW2 Army Schwinn?

[a2jacketpatches]

A guy was wheeling this down the street when he noticed my "I Buy Old Military Stuff" sign. offered me a signal corps phone and he's coming back later with bayonets. Just the look of this bike left no question but to give him the $25 for it. It appears to be a Schwin 38/40 DX but there's no markings that I can find yet. Anyone here know the skinny on these things? Rims seem good enough and if this is a candidate for restoration of a WW2 military bike I may bust out the sandblaster and spray equipment soon.

 

[STEVE S.]

should be a serial number on the crank housing if I remember correctly. You can cipher all the info from that. Can't tell or not whether those are S-2 wheels which should be correct for that frame. Thinking thats a postwar frame, but not sure when they went to that design (same frame as used on the Phantoms. Most of the prewar stuff had a single straight tube under the top tube.

I've got this one, which is a 52 B-6

 

[jack31916]

Check out this link from a Belgian collector:

http://www.theliberator.be/militarybicycles.htm

 

[a2jacketpatches]

Thanks for the bunch of useful info fellas, a seial# look up tool says this - 1952 or 1957, looks like the Phantom model as stated. I may just do the project anyway considering the surface rust of the chrome etc. Everything painted OD would still have the look and feel of a vintage U.S. Army bike.

 

[unclegrumpy]

Why not make it a 1950's USAF flight line bike? I have seen those painted yellow or orange in pictures on SAC bases.

 

[STEVE S.]

I'm going to do the OD Army thing with my old cushman scooter.

 

[a2jacketpatches]

The SAC bike sounds cool, I'll have to search some reference photos. I'm a SAC guy fron the 80's

 

[unclegrumpy]

The SAC bike sounds cool, I'll have to search some reference photos. I'm a SAC guy from the 80's

I recalled as such

It seems to me I have seen a yellow and black color scheme, where flat metal panels were added over half of the back wheel that were checker boarded...

 

[a2jacketpatches]

I was keen to the OD idea in the first place as I'd be able to cover the pitted chrome etc. without buying too much for the project but I'll look into the SAC idea as well.

 

[a2jacketpatches]

Couldn't find a single example of the SAC bike.

 

[a2jacketpatches]

I'm going to do the OD Army thing with my old cushman scooter.

Was this used by the Army?

 

[STEVE S.]

No, they did make a paratrooper version that was dropped from the planes during WWII, but it had a tube frame over the engine instead of a sheetmetal body.

 

[a2jacketpatches]

Yup, familiar with that one, believe they also had a folding bicycle. Good idea though, anything with the overall vintage look would make a good fantasy item. That's why I'm figuring that a sandblaster, some cheap older parts, and a quart of OD would do this rusty frame right. Sold my bike before moving to Cali 6 months ago and regretting it with the near perfect weather here.

 

[STEVE S.]

Hard to tell from that pic, but the front end & wheels on that cushman are finished. Whenm I do the body, will add the white star & serial number etc.

look thru this thread & you may get some ideas...

http://ratrodbikes.com/forum/index.php?threads/military-bikes.15700/

 

[a2jacketpatches]

Ideas and inspiration! Thanks very much for the link, just what I needed. Looks like I'm not the only guy with the idea. Being either 1952 or 57 with that vintage look and feel makes it the perfect base for this project. What a happy bunch of guys, not a shred of criticism between them, nothing but encouragement. I almost expected there to be rigid expectations but everything from modern to actual pre-war bikes are being used and everyone just having fun with the idea. These are projects that can be completed using less than perfect parts as well, abundant on Ebay.

 

[Treetopflyer]

You could always go the Navy route.