1978 Schwinn Le Tour III, repair?

Rust does not necessarily mean the parts need to be replaced. Take some time, clean them up and lubricate.

I would suggest that you replace only the chain and all the cables and housings along with the tires and tubes. If you like how it rides then go ahead and replace the saddle and the other stuff if you want.

You can buy cables, housings, and chain at any bike shop BUT you will need a special tool to replace the chain. Figure $40 for the lot.

If this exceeds what you wanted to spend to fix up the bike to riding condition, then another bike is in order.

In some respects, I disagree with M R: This is a classic bike made by Schwinn, back when Schwinn made good bikes. It is heavy and you would never use the thing for a race, but it has value to those Schwinn collectors (and there are a few of them).

The cost will be in replacing the pedals, shifters and seat. This could be a grand restoration project that will cost a little but could net a nice return in the long run.

Plus, as another poster put it, you can learn some invaluable wrenching skills.

Anything is possible, but it sounds like a project. The park tools website will walk you through any repair. You can get $5 tires and other dirt cheep components from niagaracycle.com. If you're handy with a wrench, go for it. It sounds like you'd pretty much be building a whole new bike though. Maybe get a couple other bikes for parts and make one good one.

It's best to either keep the repairs minimal and cheap or just rid yourself of the bike. The bike has no particular value and you can buy a much better used bike that needs little to no repair for under $100.

Buy another bike, as it is foolish to put 10 - 20 times what you paid into repairs.

this is a steel bike. more than likely if rust is outside, it's on the inside too. bikes are painted outside, but the inside of the tubes is mostly bare steel allowing them to rust from the inside out. this often leads to joint failures. here is the thing, it can be updated and fixed if you want to do that. my 1981 raleigh has been cold set to accept 9sp wheels, and updated to 105/ultegra mix. you can even find parts out there for the older stuff if you search. i guess it depends on how bad you want to fix it up.

fix it up!

nothing better to teach you how to wrench than to build up a bike, no matter how old it is.

of course, you'd want to keep costs at a minimum, but just because it's old & dusty doesn't mean it won't make a great bike.

Unless the bike has sentimental value it is almost never worth it to fix up a bike like the one you are describing.

Yes