madpogue 

Confirmed, it's not for a Raleigh-style hub. That fella probably considered it the "best of the lot" only because it happened to fit the 90mm fork spacing.

Funktopus

So what difference does a Raleigh fork have? This worked fine for me before my friend had it.

clubman 

It's hard to say that it was working fine. Every time you rode it, it could have been slowly tightening and unfortunately, your friend inherited the bike just before it seized. You can choose to pop a new spindle and cones in this hub, lube it well, put it in the frame correctly, adjust it properly and then tell your friend why the wheel needs to be inserted the same way every time. Or find another front wheel with locknuts that somewhat matches the rear wheel and the bike.
As far as differences in Raleighs, just go to sheldonbrown.com and catch up on the idiosyncrasies of Brit bikes and more. It's a resource that pretty much everyone here has used to school them on vintage bikes. He's a much better read than my posts.

madpogue 

Hard to describe the Raleigh fork dropouts, and I don't have a photo. It's designed so the left dropout locks in with the flats on that adjustable cone. So when the wheel turns, the cones don't lock or unlock. Mounting such a wheel backward in a Raleigh fork, as mentioned above, can cause exactly what happened to your friend. MAYBE the adjustable cone could be oriented in a more generic fork dropout so that the dropout does the same thing, but I wouldn't chance it.

I thought someone had referenced a passage in a Sheldon Brown article about how these hubs work, but apparently not. Anyway, here it is - https://sheldonbrown.com/english-3.html#fronthub . Note the comment about mounting backward. Words don't illustrate it well, however; there are youtube videos showing how the axle fits the fork, and how the bearings are adjusted.

TL;DR -- with a conventional fork, you're better off with a conventional hub/axle with locknuts.

Funktopus

Very bizarre that I was able to use this bike for so long without trouble, but oh well. Shame I bought a replacement hub that's also Raleigh style, although obviously changing hubs would mean a new spoke length.

My friend doesn't want the bike back, that was a full-on return, I refunded him. The wheel repair was so I can ride it from time to time. Looks like it might be destined for a hiatus while I sort my new frame out, maybe by the end of summer I'll have another look at getting it back on the road.

Thanks all for the help everyone, and the info around Raleigh hubs. Obviously I'm familiar with Sheldon, but I had never thought a front wheel could go in backwards!

BigChief

Something odd about this hub. Looks like a regular Raleigh hub but there's no shoulder on the axle for the fixed hub to bottom out on. That design won't work without one. What happened here is the only possible outcome if the fixed cone isn't fixed.

repechage

note the small extension on one cone- on Raleigh, Phillips by Raleigh and others the fork had a slight “keyhole” end at the end of the slot, it helped keep things as they should be placed - in a typical fork the load is just carried by that wee protrusion... not enough friction and the cone under “procession” moved, in this case it just wound in, seized the hub, then with a pilot of low mechanical aptitude ... destructive testing

clubman 

Fair question. Perhaps the cones would still stop dead if the steel was hard enough when the thread ran out. Or did the PO swap in a different 26tpi axle from another generation?

clubman 

Good eye, cones fitting keyholes. The axle is not original to this hub design and may have jammed up, proper orientation or not.