Originally Posted by
TiHabanero
I have a 1985 Miyata 1000, but am building my own touring frame and will transfer the parts from the Miyata to my frame once it is done (almost there!). My biggest concern is the rear hub being freewheel and lack of proper axle support. On tours in the past I have bent axles, so this I am familiar with, and am trying to convince myself to build new wheels using cassette hubs. I just have a good selection of vintage parts that I feel wasteful not using them.
I applaud your efforts to avoid discarding perfectly good components, I too have bent axles so I would not want to use a older freewheel type hub for touring.
A friend of mine tours with freewheels, but he uses a Phill hub to avoid the weak axle problem. (He tours on a Habanero Titanium frame too.)
I suspect the Campy axles would be stronger than the axles you or I have previously bent, I have not heard of a Campy axle breakding, but still the cassette freehubs are such a much better design. If I was building up a frame it would be 135mm dropouts as that would have less dish than 130mm. If you really wanted to build a frame for old hubs, you would have to use 126 or maybe 120mm dropout spacing which I think is intentionally building a frame that is a bit too retro in thinking.
You should be able to find a good Deore steel axle 135mm spaced hub for a pretty good price.
https://www.modernbike.com/shimano-d...rear-hub-black
Two years ago I built up a new touring bike, I found a new M756A XT 36 hole hub for a pretty good price and used that, that particular hub is a steel axle design, but I was using a disc hub, not a rim brake hub.
https://www.jensonusa.com/Shimano-XT-M756A-Rear-Hub
A few months ago I was looking for a replacement freehub for a Deore hub for a disc brake wheel. I found it was cheaper to buy a new hub than only a replacement freehub. I bought this hub from this seller, he or she appears to have more hubs than only the one that I bought.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/New-Shimano...m/153158570355