Beach Cruiser Klunker / Rat Rod Project pt.1 - The Finding

I've been wanting to build a rat rodded out cruiser or a klunker MTB for at least a few years year, so I have been keeping my eye out for a base bike. In 2013 I had found a schwinn back in the woods at Haw Creek, but itwas just waaaay too rusted out to recover so it ended up on the junk pile. Time passed. Then the other day on the way to work I saw a beach cruiser just laying in the grass in front of a Rite Aid on a busy intersection on my way to work. I immediately pulled into the parking lot and scoped it out. Although it wasn't clear how or why the bike got there, it was definitely not rideable and I suspect it was put there on purpose for someone to find. That someone was me! I needed to get to work but I was able to call my Dad and wait for him to arrive with the truck and take it home.

 It's a Murray Montery 26". It was manufactured in Lawrenceburg, TN approximately 1981 and loads of the parts are also made In USA. Here's what it looked like brand new...

It's actually not in to bad condition compared to the Schwinn. I was laughing when I found it because it had a bunch of sticker bush remnants all tangled up in it. Below are a few pics of the general condition/rust/patina.

Wow a 3/8" front wheel axle with safety washers. I'm gonna need to find a supplier who carries Wald parts I guess.

The rear sprocket won't engage or brake. It's a Bendix coaster brake, which I have rebuilt hundreds of, but not for at least 25 years (wow I'm old!). I'm pretty sure this one can be recovered. Usually when one is behaving like this it is because the grease inside has broken down and is actually sticky, so it is not allow the parts inside to move freely, and the brake/drive mechanism gets stuck between the drive side and the brake side. Future post will be the disassembly cleaning and reassembly. I can't believe I am saying this but I am actually looking forward to it!

The rust on the frame is perfect Rat Rod bizness. Not too much, not too little.

Here you can see the bent pedal on the non drive side.You can also see that the crank Hanger tube isn't really a tube! It is a rolled piece of sheet metal. The part towards the back that looks like a seam is in fact just that. Murray, I am sure you did this as a cost saving measure but it was pretty dumb. I got a good laugh out of the kickstand being the part of the bike that is in the best condition.

CAUTION: This bicycle is NOT designed for stunt riding or Moto-cross Track USE.

The first step of the process was to see if I could crack all of the different nits and bolts free. This one went waaaaay better than the Schwinn, on which I never got a single nut to crack. Monty was pretty cooperative though. I was thinking the hardest would be the big crank nut, but it came loose with practically no trouble after just a bit of wire brushing and adding some penetrating oil. I still haven't taken it completely off but I got it far enough to know it will not be a problem. The seat post came out with no problems.

The tubes of course are not holding air, but that was expected. The spokes on the front wheel are reaaaallly loose which is kind of strange, but it'll give me an excuse to break out the truing stand. Since I was messing around with it yesterday I figured I would do a bit of quick prototyping with some parts. Check out how simply swapping to a different seat changes the whole personality of the bike.

Time to get rid of the foamies and see what kind of handlebar options may be fun...

A simple flop might be nice, but it really will work better once converted to a nice long flat stem by way of a threadless stem adapter like the one I used on Ye Olde GT Talera.

Decided to get wild and see what would happen if we gave the orig bars the bullhorn treatment. I dunno, it may be a little much. Again, I think that this may be a bit different with a long flat stem and maybe sawing the bars off a bit.

Hey let's throw some riser bars on there and see what happens. Yeah man this look was pretty nice and we are getting into klunker territory here. We tried a few variations like putting way angled out front and completely upside down also, but in the end the regular position looked best.

Niece Kaiyah approves heavily!

Now that all the nuts and bolts have been cracked and I've been able to visualize a few things I am more excited than ever about this built. Obvs I've already named him Monty short for Monterey. Once challenge that I will have is that this bike is not set up in any way for handbrakes and if I can't get the coaster running in the orig wheels I am def going to want to use freewheel, but I already have some ideas on how to solve that.
Gonna be fun. Welcome to the family Monty. Low Budget Soul Rider forever.