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1969 Jupiter Scout 24

Vintage Jupiter 24" from 1969 fully restored with custom paint. Frame made by Øglænd. Build during jan-aug 2009.




NEW PROJECT
This project began in late january when i scored a vintage finnish Jupiter muscle/youth bike at local auction site for 40€ (that's about $57). It didn't look like much when the seller dropped the bike at our doorstep one chilling late january evening, but the potential for something cool was there for sure. Everything on the bike was spray bombed black including the frame, fork, seat, chainwheel, cranks and what was consciously left unpainted had black drips of paint. Parts that had rust were painted silver. The wheels had been done white and part of the spokes too. Overall the bike was well used, out of tune and very dirty with heavy build of grease on and around the hubs, chain and bottom bracket. Dirt, sand and everything you can imagine. I knew this was going to be a lot of work..

Jarno Saarinen "The Flying Finn" on ice back in 1963.


"THE FLYING FINN"
What i had in back of my mind with this build was to pay sort tribute to late great finnish sports athletes as a group, but especially to Jarno Saarinen, the legendary finnish motorcycle racer even though i have never been a fan of any motor sports. The nickname and the term "Flying Finn" emphasizes a group of great finnish athletes in all fields of sport who earned their title thru their success. First of them Hannes Kolehmainen (runner) in Stockholm olympics in 1912 aswell as the most famous finnish motorcycle racer Jarno Saarinen who died in 1973 at Monza track. Quote; "The term (Flying Finn) has such international renown that it is often attached to notable Finnish sportsmen whose exploits are fleet of foot or have to do with fast cars."

The custom made "Flying Finn" number plate.


FIRST IMPRESSION..
It was apparent the bike had been built by someone of the previous owners as these bikes didn't come exactly like this from the bike shop although pretty close. But when? That was still a mystery. Like we've seen in the past the common style was, that kids (or their dads) would build their own more less on what they had available, you know the story. Later on i got in touch with the seller to ask if he knew anything about the past of his old vehicle. Turned out his father had salvaged it from the local city dump sometime in late 80's to early 90's when the finnish economy had hit rock bottom and he among so many others, lost his job. As a pastime he started building old bicycles and salvaged some five truck loads of old bikes, including this one, and built his son this cool vintage muscle bike from scratch. Beyond that the seller didn't know much about the bike and couldn't say anything about the brand either which was left as a mystery for me to find out later. I paid for the bike, we shook hands and he took off. I was stoked because this was my first bike of this kind and i had never owned such. I do remember seeing these style bikes all over the place when i was a kid. To a 6-7 year old kid these kind of bikes beared sort of "rebel" appeal to them as being commonly ridden by older kids and built custom. This was a start of a whole new experience, a new kind of project compared to traditional 20" freestyle and BMX bikes i've done in the past. A breath of fresh air sort of.

This is how i got the bike in january 2009. The photo is from november 2008.


PIECES..
Further inspection showed that in truly traditional custom building spirit, there were all kind of old parts taken from variety of old bikes. The earliest year markings on some of the parts date back to 1967 and 1969. The bike came with a dynamo powered headlight and a broken horn, slightly bent chrome ape-hanger bars with welded-on stem (due to stem slippage, apparently), a banana race seat with duct tape repair on the nose, mismatch forks, rusty sissy bar, bent cranks, loose rat trap pedals, moped tires, heavily corroder rear fender, contour grips and a vintage coaster brake with a worn out cog. The list goes on.
The specialty of this bike were definitely the odd-size tires used on old mopeds in the 60's with the tire size 23 x 2.25" that fit onto 19" diameter rims. There was dry rotted Nokia "Speed-Hakkapeliitta" knobbie on the rear and a more decent condition Nokia "Leijona" moped tire on front with same size. The wheels had finned steel rims with 36 spokes, Union front hub and chzech Favorit brand english type coaster brake on the back with old, worn out 21T thread-on cog.
There was 46T chainwheel with 155mm unknown brand bent cranks with west german steel pedals and a Fauber type bottom bracket with threaded cups. I had never taken off this type of bottom bracket, mind you this was threaded cups with one piece cranks, not euro BB with three piece cranks. The bottom bracket bearings and the cup surfaces were still in great working condition and only needed some cleaning. They have cool dust shields which overlap the bottom bracket shell completely to keep the dirt out. Once everything was taken apart and cleaned up, i didn't just put the bike back togeter. Instead i evaluated which parts i would actually still going use and which i wouldn't. For starters the cranks were too short for my taste so i wasn't going to use them. However they have a cool planet with rings style of stamp on them and what i think is a year stamp '69.


THE CRANKS
I was out skateboarding one day with my buddy and stumbled upon this abandoned, trashed old ladies bike thrown at the bottom of a ditch next to a railroad track. The reason i went over to pick it up was the snowflake chainwheel but turned out it had Sugino cranks too! So, we took the carcass of what used to be a bike to friend's apartment and took off the cranks and chainwheel. Problem solved, sort of. See the right side pedal was stuck on its threads. I tried everything to remove it only to wreck a few of my tools and decided to take it to LBS for removal. It took the effort of three men tring to work the pedal off the cranks. It was THAT tight with rust on the threads. Ultimately they did it and the pedal came out with horrible creaky sound! The cool west german rat trap pedals were completely polished to chrome like and "motofied" meaning the teeth were filed sharp.


"SPEED-HAKKAPELIITTA"
The tires were sort of another dilemma, because i wanted to use same kind of tires for front and rear. But since the rear one was toast and they were a mismatch pair i had no choice but to start hunting for a pair of vintage 23" x 2.25" Nokia "Speed-Hakkapeliitta" moped tires. I was lucky, beacuse i ended up finding not one, but two pairs! A NOS pair with ice studs for the icy finnish roads and one slightly used regular pair. There is a bunch of old moped enthusiasts in finland more less constantly in the hunt for these same tires so the bidding heated up a bit in the end. I ended up paying 55€ for the dry weather Hakkapeliitta's and 100€ for the studded pair but i was happy although the tires ended up being the biggest single investment on this bike.

Overview of the vintage Nokia Speed-Hakkapeliitta 23x2.25 moped tire.


WHEELS..
The rims had two layers of paint on them, the original and a later applied messy layer on top. So they had to be stripped down to bare bones because the paint job was in such horrible state. Unfortunatley there was no way to salvage the original layer with cool gold pinstripes but i had a few ideas in the back pocket. There was only slight rust on the steel rims so the restoration was pretty easy. The rims were stripped, primed twice with satin white primer and twice with glossy white. The final step was to add  metallic blue stripes which were done by hand but ofcourse with the help of masking tape. For the stripes i used enamel paint.
Spokes had about 30+ years of gray patina on them including nipples. I had to polish each spoke one by one first with soapy steel wool and then give the final polish to them. No cheating! A set of 36 spokes took about three hours form the beginning to sweet end. Ofcourse i could've just gone to local bike shop and get some new shiny ones, but that wouldn't have been the same and, since they were functionally fine, why not? As for the hubs, both needed complete overhaul, polish, grease and final adjustment. The chzech made Favorit brand coaster brake hub needed a bit more work though as it had slight rust and the cog was worn out. Turned out finding a replacement cog was a task..
I went thru most of the bike shops downtown until i found a couple used ones in 18T and 20T sizes. The 20T one even came with a driver! The shopkeeper said it's yours if you can remove the stuck driver. Cool. Then i calculated what would be the optimal gear ratio with the 46T chainwheel and the 23" tires combined. Turned out the 18T cog was close to a 45/16 gear on 20" BMX so i went with that. The driver on the coaster hub has clockwise threads for the cog and counter clockwise threads for the lock ring that keeps the cog in place. The internals on both hubs were fine, all they needed was some clean up and new grease. Once the paint on the rims had dryed and the spokes were polished and both hubs adjusted it was finally the time to lace the wheels! This was a great moment as the rims had sat a month or two just waiting for something to happen.


FRAME
The frame obviously required most work. Under the black layer of paint was the original factory candy blue over silver primer. Like the rims, there was just no way of saving the original colour so sadly, i had strip the frame completely. On the way i found out evidence of the original graphics and shadow lines of the missing heatube bagde which confirmed the frame was a Jupiter made by Jonas Öglaend co. in norway. As to which Jupiter model it was specificly, i couldn't tell, but atleast i now knew which brand it was. Keep in mind, i bought the bike titled just "an old chopper bike", no brand, no model, no year, no nothing so this was huge "find" and the little archeologist in me screamed in excitement!
The original paint was tough to remove and it took me a while to get the stripping job going. This lead to occasional lack of motivation so i made a plan where i would go thru one small section at a time, that way the work wouldn't feel so excruciating. The plan worked and the frame was finally ready for primer in about two weeks once i really got into it! I was undecided whether to use professional painter, should i use car paint or powder etc. etc. or, do it all by myself. I thought well, to keep the traditional building spirit alive in this bike i will paint the frame myself. I can do it. So i went for it.
I applied two layers of traditional red spray-primer for the hell of it and another two layers of glossy black spray paint. Why black? Why spray paint? Wasn't the frame black just a moment ago? Well yes, but only this time the paintjob would be done more properly with focus. I did think of other colours too, including reviving the original blue but since the seat was blue already there would've been too much of it so blue sort of got out of question. But i didn't want it to look like a "puffy-pimp-garage-bling-bling-cruiser" with some yucky pastel glitter tone with over-chrome twister this and that either so i went black. Afterall this should be more of a RACER bike, not a beach cruiser. I also wanted to emphasize the frame's vintage looks and its 60's origins so i studied how the frames this old used to look and what style of paintjob and lines they used to do. I did the front end classic white with narrowing pinstripe arrows pointing backwards with additional decorative metallic blue stripes along the arrows as a tribute to the original metallic candy blue colour.
The integrated kick stand was cracked at the top and i got i re-welded early on. Still it was rusty and covered in paint. It was sanded progressing to finer and finer grip sandpaper and finally mirror polised to chrome-like looks.


THE BADGE
Finding a vintage brass Jupiter headbadge for the frame was pure luck. In fact i found two, both violently removed from some old Jupiter frames. One was in nicer condition than the other, it had just a dark patina on it which was easy to polish. The badge's raised "Jupiter" letters had origianlly been red on the insides with white on the outsides and golden laurel wreath around it and a white crown at the top. I pondered whether is hould just polish it and leave it as is but i decided to restore it and use paint. The mounting holes on the badge didn't match with the rivet holes on the frame's headtube so i had to make new ones. The rivets were created from scratch. I used hardened concrete wall/sheet rock nails with nice round golden top and cut them right under them to create homemade rivets and simply riveted the badge on. They were tight fit so the badge WILL stay put and the rivet heads look as if they have always been there if you ask me.






FORKS
Plans changed with the forks during the build. The ones that came with the bike turned out being too narrow for the monstrous 2.25" wide moped tires. So all the work i did stripping and sanding the "original" ones was for nothing as i simply couldn't use it. Oh well.. One day though i went to local recycling plant where they have a workshop for bikes and spares and found a perfect substitute fork. It was chrome, near mint condition out of some bike about the same age so i bought it for 4€ and it even came with a near mint vintage headset! Yeah! This was much better in all aspects as it was much wider at the top to begin with and it was chrome. However i had to press small pit on each side to be on the safe side with tire clearance but it was no problem and the fork was so cheap that i wouldn't lose much had something went wrong during the process. I have no idea what brand it is, probaly came on a finnish Nopsa or other.


FENDER
The rear fender was a wreck. A lot of serious rust and corrosion and it was crushed shapeless on the bottom. I was very close not to use it at all but then decided to give it a try to see if i can save it. The bottom part was crushed because the owner had had problems making it fit into the frame's fender mount bridge. First, the paint was removed with heat gun, as the paint stripper turned out less effective and i didn't wan't to waste too much time with it. I then cut the fender shorter about an inch off the bottom, made it nice and round and sanded the fender progressing to finer and finer grit. The worst bumps and scratches were filled and sanded and then it was time for primer and final layers of paint. Then i had to make new mounting holes and the final decorations using metallic blue for stripes and a strip of checker decal along the center line.




THE BLUE BANANA

Restoring the seat turned out huge project and it was completed before i did anything else for the bike. First the seat was overhauled to bits, the vinyl cover, the foam, the steel frame and the decorative bolts securing the sides of the vinyl cover under the seat togheter with glue. Inside the seat the foam had long cracks on the sides, even bigger crack at the bend and some dry rot but not bad. The vinyl cover had rips and tears and small holes allover it. The metal frame had paint and some rust. It was quite a mess.
Like i said, the original vinyl seatcover was brutally painted black and i didn't even realize the seat was actually blue until i removed the duct tape that was holding the shredded nose together. I thought "What?! It's BLUE!?!" and gently tested the paint remover to see how the vinyl reacts to it. I had to work gently and fast doinf small section at a time because the paint remover is tuff stuff and it reacts with the vinyl in a minute softening it quite a bit. I didn't want to melt a hole on it. Once the paint was successfully removed it was time to repair and reinforce the vinyl aswell as the foam. I put some patches on the insides using cotton and whatnot and cleaned up the metal frame of the seat.
There was a piece of vinyl missing on the nose and i kept on thinking where the hell would i find the matching colour replacement vinyl patch for it?? I was lucky again, and found a piece of tough nylon sheet they use here for covering boats at the dry docks with pretty much perfect colour match. After cutting and fitting the patch the seat was done.
The sissybar had once been chrome but not anymore. I managed to get rid of the rust but only after a good polish it was good enough to use. The struts were okay, they had been almost completely hidden inside the sissybar bottom so they had been spared from rust. Seatpost had to be polished aswell and i had to find a bolt with right style flat head to attach the post to the seat. Seatpost clamp was intergated with the frame so that was one part less to worry about.

The original banana race-seat in its original blue colour.


V-HANGER
The ape-hanger bars were reinforced for more stability with a dual homemade bolt-on v-crossbars. I had to get creative with the crossbars and made them out of an old bicycle luggage rack tubes i found from a dumsper. I did two versions, straight ones and the v-shaped ones. The v-crossbars had more of that motocross feel and looks to them so i chose them. They were simply mounted with bolts thru the bars, on both sides of the bars. The original stem was welded on to the ape-hangers and obviously there were no means to adjust the bars forth or back so it had to go. Although first i thought it was a cool "motofication" but in the end common sense took over. The bars simply have to be so i can adjust them to my liking. I successfully cut the stem clamp off in three pieces around the welded section. I replaced it with the right style single gooseneck i found at the smae recycled bike parts workshop for 3€ in perfect chrome. I have no idea what brand it is or what bike it came on but it's not relevant. Now they give the bars decent amount of reach and good height without having to yank the stem way up. The bars had what i like to call contour grips but despite being original they were the wrong colour and style so i used blue Ideal brand BMX grips i almost threw away earlier. The bars were slightly bent at left side so i bent the other side aswell for symmetry, and besides, no one can tell cause the numberplate hides the scars. Speaking of which, the numberplate was done custom with hand cut numbers and the phrase "Flying Finn". Yes, even the tiny letters and the little flags are hand cut.





CHAINGUARD
I have never been a fan of any kind of chainguards on any bikes and even less in BMX bikes because i simply don't like the looks but this bike required one. Otherwise it looked as if there's something significant missing, it would've looked "naked". The chainguard was found off a womens 5-speed thrown at, here we go again.. the dumpster. All it needed was some polishing. I made a rear mounting bracket to make it fit and some decorative blue tape to show off and it was done. The one that came on originally was too big for my taste band i was looking for something more sportslike and agile. I didn't want to hide too much of the drive train with some bulky chainguard after all the trouble i went thru acquiring the cranks and chainwheel and making them shine so this was perfect candidate. It does have quite a few scars and dings on it but the rest of the bike isn't flawless either. After the polisihing yoy would've never known how bad it was when i found it. I had to fabricate a home made chainguard mounting tab on the back from an old headlight bracket. It turned out ok.




THE FIRST RIDE
The bike rides great. The first impressions put to words during its maiden voyage were "low" and "comfortable". The bars make sure your hands are extended and high but very comfortably. The pedals have excellent grip and the the cranks are perfect length too. It took a while to get used to the long seat though, and i was constantly sitting up too front on it after being so used and to small BMX seats. It felt weird, in a good way, to sit so far back, almost on top of the rear wheel. The tires make the ride really smooth. I have about 50PSI front and back which seems great for most surfaces. On sand or gravel the tires really distribute the weight venly and carry the load great with excellent grip. Then again, that was exactly what i expected them to do. Afterall, they are the most legendary tire type form just as legendary tire manufacturer with impressive roots. On a side note, there is no info whatsoever about how much you "should" inflate. Guess in the 60's that was irrelevant, lol! The tires handle great on sand roads, really carryingwell the weight of the rider and the bike. Otherwise you feel pretty much like king holding onto the apehangers and there's a lot of room to sit on! The gears are comfortaby hard to pedal allowing greater speeds if needed. One thing i dislike on the current cruisers and whatnot is their gears are typically set so light as if everyone in the world would want to cruise around just 3Km/h?! No way! This bike needs speed!! The coaster brake could react faster but it does its job fine otherwise.


Parts and specs:



* Frame: vintage 1967-1969 Jupiter youth/muscle bike welded by Jonas Öglaend co. in norway
* Fork: 26" chrome plated, stamped NE

* Serial#: 3395331
* Frame material: steel with brazed welds
* Headset: 1" caged bearings
* Stem: chrome plated gooseneck 24.5mm clamp dia. with 22.2mm shaft dia.
* Handlebars: 26" by 13" rise vintage apehangers with custom dual v-crossbars
* Grips: Ideal BMX from the G.A.C. Akimoto

* Bar ends: Plastic
* Seatpost: 19mm dia. steel
* Seatpost clamp: integrated
* Seat: 19" banana race seat with steel frame
* Cranks: Sugino 175mm with finer Fauber threads, stamped '78
* Chainwheel: 46T "snowflake", steel

* Chain: KMC 410 single speed
* Bottom bracket:[i] Fauber w/caged bearings[/i]
* Pedals: steel rat traps made in west germany with sharpened teeth for maximum traction

* Rims: finned steel rims 36H 19" bead size (for 23" tires) x 1.5"
* Spokes: 224mm steel
* Tires: Nokia "Speed-Hakkapeliitta" vintage moped tires 23" x 2.25" (new size translation is 2.1/4-19)
* Tubes: Nokia 24" with Dunlop valve
Updates:
* April 2010: After some research it has turned out the exact model type of this frame is Jupiter Scout. Also switched from the steel rat trap pedals to fully restored and polished and more era and style correct vintage rubber pedals by Weco. Pics to follow.