13oct2002

I was inspired by Smasher's rebuild of a three-speed Raleigh including a thorough rehab of its Sturmey-Archer hub. (Also, green bike makes a terrible beater.)

So I finally started looking through the OTSC I've got sitting around. There are four AW-hub three-speeds.

a 1963 step-through Armstrong
now a crucial beater. Curbside when a neighbor moved.
a 1963 Schwinn
with crunchy SA hub and/or bottom bracket and/or chain (it's hard to tell which, since there's a u-lock still on (a friend of a friend of a friend has offered to help with that)). From SGW from LCS ("do you want your bike back?).
a 1969 Drake
(which I gather is also cheap Raleigh, made in India), with no uh indicator spindle I mean little chain coming out - but the cranks and wheel turn quietly - but I stole its handlebars and stem (no, wait, there they are on the porch) and its fork is over there and its headset bearings are oops all over the front hall rug
a 1971 step-through Quickrun
from Holland - in pretty good shape - it has half a horn and a mirror, both totally rusted out. And it's not black, it's uhh beige or something. This is the next one into the tub. At the moment it's on the back porch proving its rear tube holds air. (Now turning into the rear half of an odd recumbent.)

09mar2003

Okay, I can't wait any more. Well, maybe. Friend of a friend said there's a man-about-town who'll extract a bike from its u-lock for a song, or rather, the u-lock. It'd be sweet to be able to start rehabbing the Schwinn. It occurred to me I should take the nasty old chain off to see how the bottom bracket is - yeah, it was the chain that was clotted up, not the BB, which is in really smooth shape. [Fallout: still never did - got the hub out for inspection, though.]

in there somewhere

Stopped in at Broadway for indicator chains, bumped into all kinds of gangsters. Went to eat after with Smasher and skunked a red schwinn bmx bike off the sidewalk.

24april2003

Scored a yellow ladies Columbia 3-speed with one-piece crank and a '72 AW SA hub - THIS is seriously in line to get tallified, very next thing [VWBeetle]. Maybe it'd like the 24" shock fork.

ohandalsoaMurray3speedshimanohub =/ [Foots]

05may2003

Yellow '72 is now tall bike VWBeetle (aka YellowBug, LightningBug)!

Had to switch out its rear wheel for the Drake's, 'cause I couldn't get it into low gear. Used the stem off the red schwinn bmx for part of its seatstay hardware.

06june2003

Accidentally trashpicked a huffy 3-speed. Working Shimano hub, though, and pretty color (purplish reddish brown). Might put it back on the sidewalk where I found it.

Ooh, Sparky found me a '65 Sturmey-Archer TCW 3-speed coaster-brakes hub! "Coaster brake. Mark I, II, III, IV. Unreliable, replaced by the S3C."     =)     Shiny... It's going on yellow bug.

09jun2003

Excellent wheel. Tried it out on the beater (which had a flat anyway), liked it; switched in a 22-tooth sprocket and put it on the bug, liked it better. Now, I could be wrong, but it seems like in gear 2.5, not only does the drive disengage (and you can freewheel forward), but so does the coaster-brake (and you can freewheel backward). I was thinking, at a long stop (with the sort of perch where the right-hand rim-brake lever is convenient) I could reset the pedals to a good starting position by switching to 2.5th gear and pedaling forward - but backward seems to work, too.

Let's see. I never fixed the flat, but I did put the 20 tooth sprocket on YellowBug's old wheel, which was the one off the '69 Drake and put that on the '63 Armstrong (the beater).

So. To summarize. The '63 Schwinn is untouched, still u-lock hobbled, and its hub is a mess. The '69 Drake is in pieces, from some ill-fated exploratory early on, and its wheel, with a new 20-tooth sprocket, is on the '63 Armstrong. The Armstrong is the current main beater, and its original wheel is flat, in the hall. The '71 Quickrun has its original wheel, and is hose-clamped to a 24" road bike from Goodwill to form Recombinant, not currently roadworthy. The '73 Columbia is reincarnated into YellowBug aka VWBeetle, with the new wheel from Sparky, with a new 20-tooth sprocket, and its old wheel is in The Wheel Pile because it never liked to stay in first gear.

15jun2003

Ooh. $5 garage sale Phillips, 1971 hub. No spokes to speak of on the rear, good excuse to build some funny size wheel onto this (no, not for MoxieMoron). Seems more or less fine otherwise.

23sep2003

Got into the blonde. I mean the Armstrong's 1963 hub. With guidance and company from Smasher. It was byoooooooootiful.

2?sep2003

Somehow got the 1963 hub out of the hobbled Schwinn! NOT byootiful at all, but That's Okay, It's Entitled. So maybe I get to replace a pinion or something, yay!

10oct2003

$10 garage sale closed-frame Rudge Sport, cables falling off everywhere, 1960 hub =)

14oct2003

A The Royal Scot, 1953 hub! With an Israeli-flag bell =)

Tuesday night I trashpicked a bicycle where the shifting hub is from 1953! I'm not sure it's original equipment, not sure the bike itself is 50 years old.

Actually, I think the whole TRS bike _is 50 years old. Squashed and drilled fork ends...

17oct2003

Found a raleigh-green 1973 Raleigh 3-speed under a bunch of leaves under a bush, walking home past the Davis Square T station which I NEVER do. The right olive drab to build the chopper to be named MilSpec. But the rear end is really crushed.

21oct2003

So, here's the odd thing, at that same garage sale, they also had a $50 blue open-frame Raleigh. I guess a week later it ends up curbside on my block a half mile away on trash day. Now, I'm still not sure it was actually _out for the trash, but still. Yes, it's the same bike, blue pipecleaner around the axles, and a bell-size beepy horn. Anyway, I told the workmen there I was taking it two houses down and if anyone asked, it'd be on the porch.

1956 hub, skips in second gear. The bike is in pretty much working order, and I'm going to put the Real Nice '63 rear wheel on it while I work on this one.

25jan2004

I thought it had a big cog on it - 22t it is indeed - but still such high gear? AH, enormous chainring. Wouldn't change it, though - it's my first cutey chainring ever, all Raleigh herons.

Got into the hub tonight (with reference to Smasher's blog because I forgot whether lefty loosey) - all grease instead of oil. The Oranj Peelz more or less works. (Kinda cheated around the pawls, didn't want to take the stupid springs off - I may pay for that.) All the parts look primo - maybe it's just the grease and the cold weather? Can't quite picture it. Gotta grease the bearings and oil the rest.

Where did that Huffy Cape Cod or whatever go?? Did I ride it to the subway or somewhere and leave it??

Didn't I ever mention this? HOW TO turn an AW hub into a 2-speed fixie - with way less machining than this one I'd seen before.

I have to sort through these rear wheels at some point to see which are so hopeless spokeless I really need to build new wheels - and then build, I dunno, crazy sizes for the choppers. I'm already sort of more excited about battleship-league choppers, but for the shorter tall bikes... OK, so gotta check the spacing of that 24" MTB frame.

25may2004

This month Threespeed skunked me a Shimano cassette, and I've done the sheldonbrown.com hack and filed off some of the splines - so now I have 3-speed-compatible sprockets in 21t, 24t, 30t! They're hyperglide and love to shift, but I mounted them backwards and haven't had any problem. The 30t is silly fun on the 1956 blue Raleigh, but the 24t was just right - but I've since donated it to HeadCrash's new 1971 Raleigh-green Raleigh Superbe and he's real happy with that. So now I'm looking for another cassette...

For that matter, thanks to Threespeed for the vise I did the filing in...

20jul2004

Another old Phillips from across the street. "Handpainted, it must be pretty old!" Well, 1969. Maybe I should build a tandem of the Phillipses. Hey, don't cottered cranks make crossover drive trivial? Needed an axle nut.

18nov2004

Took the Phillips to aikido camp; it got a flat halfway through, but it was fun while it lasted. Then someone stole it off my driveway a week after I got back.

The Armstrong chewed the splines off its shimano 21t cassette cog. First failure.


Skunked SA AW 3-speeds to date: (well, paid 0, 0, 10, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 5, 0, 0, 0)

yearbikedescr
1953The Royal Scot, Sports Model OF, black, 32/40. Fork ends squashed and drilled! Nonoriginal chain guard.
1956Raleigh OF, blue. The loaner. Frame seems younger. Rehabbed hub. Enormous herons chainring, 22t rear. In great shape! Out on long-term loan.
1960Rudge Sports CF, black, 32/40. Looks like Vomit's but w/cables flying
1963Armstrong OF, black. Bottom bracket in squeaky shape, wobbly pedal.
1963Schwinn Traveler CF, black, 36/36. U-lock hobbled. 1pc crank, flip for tall bike?
1969Drake CF, black. In pretty shape. Got experimentally exploratoried. Headset bearings missing, pedal missing circlip, one crank cotter off; bought a new pair; immediately broke one of them; bought new, almost rehabbed.
1969Phillips Master Model CF, black. Runs AOK, one crank limps, no rear brake pads. Stolen =(
1969Schwinn Tourist CF, brown, OPC. Needs work.
1971Quickrun OF, beige. Runs nice. Except that it's hose-clamped to a juvy road bike to form the chopper Recombinant.
1971Phillips CF, black and white. No spokes to speak of on rear wheel.
1971Phillips OF, aqua and white. From Threespeed's Bikes-Not-Bombs pile. Needs work. This will be the new long-term loaner.
1972Columbia OF, yellow. VWBeetle; its wheels are on BDAS.
1973Raleigh Sports OF, green, 32/36. Rear end 100% bashed in. A good top half for a tall bike, or maybe could bang flat enough to xtracyclize.