Bicycle Restoration Services
Scott Wilke has been collecting, restoring, and preserving vintage American bicycles for over 25 years and has the most restoration experience of anyone in the Milwaukee area. His passion extends to the bike restoration services we offer here at South Shore Cyclery which we are proud to offer our customers and anyone who has a vintage bike they'd like to see running again.
Check out some of our most popular bike restorative services below, or give us a call or email Scott at: scott.w@southshorecyclery.com to tell us about your project.
Coaster Brake Hubs
With few exceptions, we have a large inventory (often NOS) of replacement parts for almost any coaster brake hub manufactured from the early 1900s to the present times. That would include parts for the following:
New Departure, Morrow, Musselman, Elgin, JC Higgins, Bendix Single Speed, Bendix 2-Speed Kickback (Red, Yellow, or Blue band), Schwinn, Torpedo Boy, Excel, Centrix, Sturmey Archer 3 Speed, and Shimano
Additionally, we have original service manuals & diagrams for those hubs and can offer professional rebuilds.
Fender Rolling & Fender Brace Replacement
Almost all the old classic cruisers and even some older road bikes had fenders. Most of them, if they have survived at all, have acquired a fair amount of dents, dimples, or creases. We have a special tool, known as an "English Wheel" that we can use to "roll out" most if not all of those blemishes making them nearly as round and smooth as they were originally. We can even work with some motorcycle fenders too. Additionally, we can replace old, bent, broken, or rusted fender braces using either rivets (just like the factory did) or nuts and bolts which are a little less time-consuming.
Vintage Bike Tires
Many folks are surprised to discover that we stock tires that will fit old cruisers. We also carry tires that can fit the proprietary Schwinn Tubular rims. Namely the S-2, S-5, S-6 and S-7 sizes.
Frame Sandblasting
We have a blaster cabinet on-site and can sandblast (using glass beads or aluminum oxide sand) parts like wheels, fenders, horn tanks, chain guards, forks, etc.
Wheel Rebuilding
If you have a vintage wheel that needs rebuilding we can do that too. Many older wheels have spokes that have rusted or otherwise deteriorated. Using our special Phil Wood spoke machine, we can make custom-sized spokes and then re-lace your vintage wheel.
Vintage Bicycle Horns and Lights
Sometimes the most difficult parts to locate for vintage bikes are accessories such as battery-operated horns and lights as they were often "tossed" when they didn't work anymore. However, if you have any of these accessories and they don't work we have been very successful in getting these going again. We also have a pretty good variety of parts for generator-powered bicycle lights too.
Springer Forks
We are also proficient at rebuilding "Springer" forks, especially the Schwinn "knee-action" variety. Further, we can re-key or replace entirely the locking mechanisms on the vintage locking front forks.
Schwinn Kick Stands
Beginning shortly after World War II Schwinn introduced the built-in kickstand. Before that time kickstands were so-to-speak "stand-alone" (as they are for the most part today) that were simply bolted to the frame. This new kickstand housing was integrated and welded into the frame itself. These kickstands had no less than 7 or so parts that had to work for the stand to operate properly. We have all the replacement parts for your old Schwinn kickstand and assuming the housing is not bent, we can probably fix it for you.