Originally Posted by
alexnagui
I am curious which method you gonna use in order to spread the dropouts.
[...]
Cool project, by the way!
I tried the one from
RJ the bike guy as well today and it worked... somewhat.
I used 8mm stainless steel threaded rod, nuts and washers.
Managed to spread the fork from 120mm to 122mm then 127mm this way by spreading it to 160mm before the threaded rod started buckling and the threading started to strip.
Felt it necessary to start using safety goggles by the that time.
It's definitely a stiff fork.
Not wide enough for the 135mm of the hub + the axle puller + the rear cover of the chainguard but I did manage to get the wheel in.
Which is a succes in my book.
I will have to retry this again some time, perhaps with some extra reinforcement or thicker rods.
There is plenty of space around the bottom bracket so I might even be able to go wider than the 42mm on the tyre but this is fine for now.
I hooked up a spare outer brake cable I had lying around but I will need to pick up an outer shifter cable to run through the gears. The 5th gear it defaults to is a bit much to get started.
Anyway, pictures!
Spread to 160mm
Set to 127mm
Buckling rod
