1979 Free Spirit Ten Speed

Once I started riding this old Free Spirit ten-speed, I was hooked. Most of my riding is on a paved recreational trail, so the thin tires aren't a hazard and the bike is a lot more efficient than a Mountain Bike on those conditions.


The bicycle came from Sears & Roebuck circa 1979. I decided that even if I buy a new road bike, that I wanted to keep the Free Spirit around since it was in such good condition compared to a few much younger bikes I have seen. The parts are old (Shimano) parts, but most of the following procedures still apply to most bicycles.

The first problem was that the wheels needed to be "trued" very badly, the crank was loose, it had lots of grime around the chain hardware, the brakes needed to be tensioned, and it had some out of order accessories. The accessories it had were a luggage wrack in the back which had a broken support (which is laying on the ground behind the bike in the picture), and a mechanical speedometer which had a loose cable and just made chirping noises. It also had "soft" plastic handle grips on the end of the dropped handle bars which were petrified and provided no cushioning.


I started by disassembling the whole thing! I cleaned all the parts with CLOROX(tm) disinfecting wipes because they have a cleaning agent which does no harm and are great for absorbing grime. I put the luggage wrack aside because it just got in the way of mounting/dismounting (and was broken). As for the speedometer, modern bicycle computers (speedometer, odometer, tripometer, etc.) are now inexpensive, under $12 at your local "superstore", and allow you to program your wheel size (unlike the mechanical one), so I replaced the huge speedometer with the little computer.


I took the wheels to the local bike shop and had them trued for $5/wheel. They still have a little jitter, but it's nothing compared to the thumping and wobbling that they had before. They had both lateral (off rotation axis) wobble and radial (tending to not form a circle) wobble. I can ride over 20 mph now and not leave the ground.


While the wheels were being worked on, I was able to remove the plastic grips a lot easier than I expected (these things have tendency to become attached). Rubber grips can be a real pain, but I figured the plastic grips would have been fused to the handlebars. I just inserted a flat-head screw driver (on the bottom side to avoid any visible scratching) in between the grip and the handle bar. I didn't pry with the screwdriver, rather just inserted and removed it several times, spraying WD-40 down the length of the screwdriver each time. After about three times, I was able to break each grip free by trying to twist the grip around the handlebar. Once it came free, I took out the screwdriver and worked it off. I cleaned the lubricant off the bars. I bought some handlebar gel tape from Bartrager, and installed them according to these directions since there were none in the box. I guess I have long handlebars because I didn't have to cut the length of the tape, I just made a cut to taper the distal end of the tape so it was flush with the handlebar cap.





The bicycle has a disk brake in the back which needed to be manually tightened because it didn't lock the wheel. The brakes in the front were also too loose. Tip: If brake pads don't lock the wheel, they need more tension. Take the wheel off of the frame, and ask an assistant to hold the pads together. If your caliper makes it easy to disengage the recoiling springs, you won't need an assistant. Taking the wheel off will provide enough slack to make the adjustment--I found it was impossible otherwise. Adjust where the steel cable is fastened on the caliper side about a centimeter and tighten everything back up.


The bike was back in order but the crank still felt bad because it moved inside the frame. It's a one-piece crank and is a lot simpler than I thought before. Take the chain off first. It has a big locking nut which you'll need a big wrench for. Note that the threads are in the opposite direction from most threads, so you take the nut off by turning it in a clockwise direction. Under that, there were some washers which act as dust covers. There is a big nut that the ball bearings ride on which needs to be finger-tightened, it was loose and this is where the crank wobble came from. I de-greased the ball bearings and the journals inside the frame. It was essentially dry inside just a lot of black deposits on everything. There was some fatigue on the right-hand (gear) side where the ball bearings either crashed down or the bearing retainer was hitting. With one-piece cranks, look inside where the crank fits and look for the obstructions from the other tubes. Find a place to fit the corner of the crank and angle the crank through as to take the gear away from the frame. This will give you more space and will let the crank rest. After everything was clean (I had to use an abrasive brush in some places), I greased everything up as much as I could and put everything back together. I used a screwdriver to make the final torque on the hand-tightened nut, I stopped as soon as I felt no wobbling of the crank. When you put everything back together, you should be able to spin the crank and it should keep spinning for a while. If it doesn't make it more than a few turns after you let go, it's too tight.


After a few other adjustments, like the kickstand position, everything was ready to go. The bike feels a lot tighter like a new bike would. All the rattling, chirping, and wobbling is gone.

The bike will need new tires soon (the thin tires don't last very long), I have about 300 miles on mine and the tread in the back is disappearing. When I replace these, I'll try to disassemble the bearings on the wheels and try to revive them like I did the crank bearings. I'll also replace the chain at that time.