Pimp My Schwinn Cruiser and Make It a Real Cruiser

I started with an old bike I got from my father, which I thoght was pretty cool. But unfortunatelly it was rusted and a lot of parts where missing. And the parts that werent mising, were rusted too. Unfortunatelly I have no pictures of the bike when I got it, because it's about 1 year from now that I made this bike. But I found a picture on the internet which looks like "my bike". Imagine it about ten times worse :D
The next steps show how to tramsform an rusted old bike into 71 inches of pure metal madness ... the oldschool way. Have fun :)

Step 1: Get Rid of the Useless Parts

Step one is to strip the hole bike, get rid of the paint in hours of hard work with loads of sandpaper and metal brushes etc.
Cut the attaching points for the front breaks you don't need anymore. Buy new parts, such as a new crank set to replace the old broken one. clean the roller bairings in case you have to wait for the new parts ;)
Make a big pile of the old stuff just in case you can reuse some of it..

Step 2: Grinder Action

some more angle grinder action to stretch your bike. after cutting the bike like mentioned in the picture number one bend the fork back and weld it together .. now your bike has an incredible lenght of about 71 inches in total with tires attached. => have a look at picture number 2
Afterwards, paint it black while listening to paint it black :P (I used very thick anti-rust paint which can be painted with a brush. Whats cool about it, is the oldschool look, plus you can easily repair dents and screatches)
Attach all the new parts including the saddle which is described in the next step

Step 3: Adjusting the Saddle Position

in order of the much lower sitting position you have t oreweld your saddle. take the old saddle- tube and cut it in an 45degree angle. Then turn one part and reweld it. you should now have an 90 degree angle in the tube as you can see in the picture. By this the saddle slips about 2 inches backwards.

Step 4: Last Step.... Have the Hell of a Time Riding Your New Bike

After attaching all the parts you need, which should be done by only a few its time to roll. At the moment with old aluminum tires ... Still in search for chrome rims. Until then I had to replace the driving collar in old MTB rims. For extra stability I welded in the triangle you can see in the front, afterwards, because after some time the paint and the surfacer began to crackle because of the extra tension such a long bike has. Your only Problem is to get your friends of the bike. Otherwise you have to ride their wasted bikes while shooting photos you can upload to instructables ;) ... But for real... All the pictures that doesn't look crappy are made by my mate Kai. Thanks for this :)
Optional: Attach Grandmas old leather saddle for extra comfort and that special feeling of nostalgia :D

And be careful in curves... the Pedals are verrrrrrry low ;)