A Little Bendix Coaster Brake Maintenance on a Schwinn Stingray

For some odd reason, probably nostalgia, I picked up a vintage Schwinn Stingray from the 70s.  While it has been a work in progress to restore this American made gem, I figured I would perform some routine maintenance that probably has not been performed in 40 years.

 

The headset, bottom bracket and front axle are a piece of cake.  The only part that really confounded me was disassembly, cleaning and lubing the Mexican made Bendix 70 coaster brake.  The earlier Bendix coasters were American made and say so on the brake arm.

Bendix 70 Coaster Brake made in Mexico

Another view of the Bendix 70

I figured before one of my kids tried out the Stingray, I'd better get it in working order.  I could tell by my own turing of the pedals and crank that it was rough and grinding.

Searching the Internet I found exploded views of everything but the Bendix 70 coaster brake.  Even consulting a 1970s edition of "Glenn's Complete Bicycle Manual" by Clarence Colmes and Harold Glenn yielded no success of this particular model.  I even tried the later edition of the book "Glenn's New Complete Bicycle Manual" revised and updated by John Allen.

Glenn's was the go-to book in the 70s for anything Schwinn.  Although an unofficial repair manual, if you wanted to do-it-yourself repair of your Schwinn in the 70s this was the book to own.

However, little did I know that I had the key to the castle hidden in my own bookshelf for over 30 years.  Yes, tucked away was the Fourth Edition of John W. McFarlane's "It's Easy To Fix Your Bike."

While I never experimented with repairing my own 10-speed following McFarlane's guidance as a kid, thumbing through 30+ years later to find repair instructions for the Bendix 70 was thrilling.

I could not believe my find.  Not only does McFarlane have an exploded view of the Bendix 70 with all the parts, on the pages that follow he takes you through the disassembly and assembly step-by-step.

McFarlane's pages on Bendix Coaster Brakes

There I had it, identification of each part and how they go together.  Not a bad thing to have when restoring a vintage bicycle when you don't know what you will find inside the brake hub.