27inch

A buddy asked me to do a coaster brake conversion on an 80's Nishiki mountain bike he picked up.
He wants to keep it all period correct, as in No Chinese parts.
He's a big guy, 6ft 3in tall and probably close to 350 lbs in his late 50's. Not so much 'fat' just big.
The bike has Araya rims, marked only 26x1 3/4" and currently has a 12 speed set up with Sunshine hubs.
I just got done rebuilding his beach cruiser rear wheel, he destroyed the Shimano CB rear hub in that now twice.

Does any one have any suggestions as to a good strong coaster brake? I have a few new old stock Bendix red stripe hubs but I hate to waste one on something like this. My collection is limited to Bendix and New Departure, and all I see new is no-name Chinese junk that look like bad Shimano clones.

Velo Mule

Shimano is the best of what is available new. And the clones have a bad reputation. The good thing with the Shimano is that it is rebuildable. Parts and rebuild kits are available. Someone has a good webpage or perhaps a video on improving the Shimano coaster brake.

It involved putting a chamfer on the leading edge of the brake pad, upgrading the axle to chrome-moly, and installing loose ball bearings to get more bearing area.

Coaster Culture

By the way there was one piece of information in the instructions that may have been wrong or at least agued about and that was the number of loose balls in one of the bearing races. Keep an eye on this if you run loose balls.

The Bendix red stripe and New Departure are considered better among the group that does the Repack coaster brake challenge races.

There is a VeloSteel hub that has some good reviews among casual riders, but not so good comments from the guys that are using them for racing and therefore hard use.

Since this will be a mountain bike conversion and you are not limited by rules to use only a coaster brake, keep the front brake and hopefully he will use it more and the coaster brake less.

bwilli88 

I am #225lbs, I ride a modified Hybrid with a Shimano coaster brake. It is a fun bike but for your friend I would suggest a front brake also.

27inch

I've got a box of old Shimano hubs but all have broken spoke flanges.
I've got a few Suntour hubs but all have 3.2,mm spoke holes, meaning I'd have to hunt down 11 or 12 ga spokes.
The bike he brought me doesn't have a front caliper, there's no hole for one. It looks like a big BMX bike but in a 24" frame.
Sort of a road bike frame with a laid back headtube angle and bmx type forks.
The original hubs are Sunshine 100mm and 120mm spaced with a 5 speed freewheel.

I have some concerns as to how well the original single wall rims will hold up under his size.
He doesn't want a Bendix or American hub, he's adamant about it being period correct
I do have some Nankai New Departure clones though.

cbrstar

Sounds like a interesting bike, I wish I could see a pic. But the Araya rims will hold up to his weight no problem, I was about the same size when I started cycling again and had no problems with mine. I think he could pick up a "Period correct" coaster brake from Bmx collectors pretty easy and cheaply. No one really wants them in fact I usually donate mine to the local bike co-op. The only one I would consider keeping is if I found a Shimano MX high flange.


If it's a 5 speed free wheel and if the brakes are OK, why not just convert it to a 1 speed BMX style freewheel?

27inch

He's got issues with using the brake lever with his hands so he wants to be able to stop just using his feet I think its mostly arthritis issues.
The rear hub is a bit rough, the bearings were likely dry for years and the races are pretty well pitted and the axle is bent.
The front hub is okay but neglected as well.
I looked online, and a Shimano hub new with shipping is at least $40 from what I've seen. I went through my box of Bendix hubs and the only 36h hubs are pre-red stripe models from the late 50's or so. All the newer one's are 28h models that were just saved for parts.
I thought about a three speed coaster hub but he doesn't want any cables on the bike.My personal parts stash just doesn't have much when it comes to Japanese coaster brakes.
He also has a new set of bars and a riser stem he wants installed, something more upright than the 3" riser bars and long reach stem it came with.
Here's the rims, I stripped them down and cleaned them up tonight, their just typical 80's-90's single wall Araya alloy rims. One generation after the dimpled 7X version.
I don't think the bike has a ton of use, there's no sign of brake wear on these rims yet the hub was pitted and about half the spokes were rusted pretty bad.
I only have the rims right now, I don't have the whole bike.
I can't tell whether this is an early comfort bike or big BMX cruiser or sorts. There's no model on it, just Nishiki on the DT. The rear caliper is a Dia Compe MX. The forks are straight tube with front plates to mount the wheel, like a simple BMX fork. There is no hole or provision to mount a caliper.
Its painted dark red metallic, with a matching fork. The bars are typical 80's mtb with a double clamp stem and riser bars in steel. The frame has rear facing dropouts like a track bike or bmx. The bike is exremely tall, I'm 6ft3in tall and with the saddle almost all the way down I can barely get on the thing. The frame measures 24" c-t.
I'm not sure where he got it, but it had 26x2.35 Kenda Studded tires with it and what is likely the original Kenda All Terrain gumwall tires on the rims below.

Velo Mule

The SunTour coaster brake has a bad reputation as well. It is too bad. I would have liked to have another alternative myself.

I think if you do a search there is a thread or two about coaster brakes here on BikeForums.

I like your thought about using a 3 speed with a coaster brake. I don't know how sturdy these hubs are. More stuff has to be fit into the same area, so there has to be a trade-offs. I was also thinking to get around you friend's no cable demand, and I understand this, I like a clean bike with no cable sometimes too, that a shifter can be mounted on the seat tube.

On my last wheel build, the rim did not have eyelets. I used nipple washers to help spread the loading to the rim. It was easy to do and I believe that the chance of a nipple either pulling through a hole or dimpling a hole are greatly reduced. No eyelet rims are not an issue with me now.

Keep us up to date on this project especially pictures as this project develops. Constraints can make things interesting.

27inch

I like using spoke washers too, these rims are a good candidate for them. The right side rear spoke holes show some dimpling but I consider that normal on a bike this old with these rims. I also don't figure this bike will see a ton of use, he'll likely do like he did with the last two, ride it for a week or two and forget about it and go looking for something different.

I didn't know the Suntour hub had any issues? The BMX crowd used to love them. What was the common failure point?
I do remember the issues with the later model hubs with the bad springs but not Suntour hubs in general. If I remember right, the hubs with the issues were from the 1990's, not the older models. Having misses the whole BMX thing by a few years age wise, I never got into it or gained much knowledge of it. In my day it was single speed coaster brake or road bikes with the three speed bike being somewhere in the middle. I didn't buy my first mountain bike till the late 80's and can't say I was all that impressed with the feel of that style bike at the time and soon went back to a road bike as my main transportation. I've since softened a bit toward the older models but have had little interest in anything newer, after the mid to late 80's in any type of bike for the most part.

The Suntour CB hub I've got is likely from the late 70's, the internals look a lot like a two shoe Bendix CB. The hubs I've got came as a set, with a matching 12ga medium flange front hub that uses the same axle and nuts as the rear hub, and same hub flange diameter so the bike would use all the same length spokes. I believe they were sold as a coaster conversion kit for a 24" BMX cruiser back in the day, sort of a 'Dad's bike' type of set up.
The shop I worked at back in the late 70's sold GT and Mongoose as their main BMX line, it wasn't my thing but I did manage to save a few bits and pieces over the years.
I've got a few new old stock GT, KKT, Suntour, and Suzue hubs that were built a little heavier than the common road bike hubs of the day. I used to convert them to quick release and run them on my road bikes. Being a big guy myself, I can certainly see the value in heavier built parts. As I get older, my daily ride is a single speed Schwinn middle weight with 12ga spokes.
This guy is bigger than me by a good so I feel anything he rides needs to be a bit on the heavy duty side. He wanted steel rims but he couldn't find any that weren't Chinese junk or overpriced rusty antiques. Steel rims would eliminate the spoke pull through concerns of a single wall alloy rim.

clubman 

Those Araya's are fine rims, just be sure to use rim washers. I've got a couple of 80's bikes with them. I'm a clyde and they rarely, if ever go out of true. Good tires and inflation solve those issues.
Even if your friend chooses to never use it, he should have a backup front brake. Pick his strongest hand for the lever. New brakes just work so well these days and his mass has a lot of inertia, going downhill with a tailwind.
(you've talked washers already)

Velo Mule

Here is the link toe the BikeForum thread that I was thinking about.

Coaster Brake Discussion
It is a good point about the SunTour coaster brake hub. I have no real experience with it. I this was based off research that I had done in the past and came across a number of comments that they were not good. However, these opinions are always subjective.

I have a SunTour coaster brake that, at some point, I need to lace to a rim and try it out. If you have had good experiences with these hubs, maybe you could try it.

Velo Mule

Here is a page from the Repack Challenge with recommendations on coaster brake hubs for the race. This is where I was getting my above posted advice from.

Repack Challenge Recommendations

Edit: I have been calling it by the wrong name. It is Coaster Brake Challenge.

27inch

That link won't work, it sets off my antivirus, something about being an unsafe sight with an expired token?

My only experience with Suntour coaster brakes was in the late 70's/early 80's, they were showing up in those plastic BMX wheels and on some Asian beach cruisers. I remember there being a cantilever frame newsboy's type bike that we sold back then, sort of a Schwinn Heavy Duti knockoff that came with the 12ga spokes and 26" wheels, and most of the lower end or beginner BMX bikes. Shimano hubs weren't that common, they seemed to come on stronger in the late 80's and 90's, but that was after my time working in a shop.
There were three or four versions of the Suntour that I remember, the first few all were very similar to a Bendix, they used a serrated cone that moved along a threaded driver to either engage forward drive or expand the brake shoes. Like Bendix, there were versions with two, three and four shoes.

I do seem to remember them making one odd version, I'm not sure if it was early on or real late, it used a strange V shaped wire spring and two keys inside to engage the clutch. Those never worked right and the springs were almost always broken. I don't think I ever took one of them apart that wasn't broken but they're few and far between.
The three brake shoe version is the most common and what we were seeing in the late 70's and 80's.
I just don't have any for standard 14g spokes, all those I squirreled away over the years are for 11 or 12 ga spokes, with 3.2mm spoke holes.

From my memory, Shimano was the one with lots of failures back then, expecially on kids bikes, which is about all we saw them on. I'm not sure what model they were but they had a habit of the flanges coming off the hub or spinning on the hub. I just found a box of them in the shed outback from years ago, every one is a 28h and every one has a broken flange or broken axle.

I have quite a few old ND model D and model A hubs and a half dozen early Bendix hubs but only one or two nice red stripe models.

My buddy doesn't want to spend $40 on a hub, so the new Shimano is out. I told him to find something or settle for a Bendix 70 or 76 because that's what I've got. He bought me 14g spokes so the Suntour is out.

I'm also not fond of donating one of my saved hubs for his bike either. I don't mind helping a buddy but I don't want to donate anything I may need myself in the future. .

cbrstar

Suntours on bmx came in 12, 13, 14 gauges. The Diacompe MX brakes are quite collectible and expensive with bmx Collectors. He could probably sell them and fund a new coaster and new spokes.

27inch

The Suntour coasters I've got are 36h with 3.2mm spoke holes.
I've probably got a tub of of those MX calipers, they were on a lot of early beach cruisers and mtb's. I saved them because they're the only caliper to clear a full size chrome fender.
The owner of this Nishiki has told me he bought a set of 26x2.125" Wald Chrome fenders for it too and he wants chrome cranks now. He stopped at some bike shop down south over the weekend and found new Wald fenders for $10 and a pair of wide handle bars and grips for $8.
I still only have the wheels, I'm not sure if the whole thing is coming here or not, if it is, it won't be till the wheels are decided on and finished. Maybe I can get away with a Bendix 76 hub if I put a made in Japan sticker on it. I doubt he'll know the difference.

Trevtassie

Anybody got a recommendation for a good coaster brake grease that doesn't melt too quickly? Been struggling to find something suitable. I have a bunch of kids bikes that we use to ride down a local mountain. It's about 10 miles, all downhill from 4200ft to sea level, there's one bit that is 4 miles at 9%. Get a lot of noobs who ride the coaster brakes, cook the grease out and weld the collets to the hub. I've had a couple of hubs go blue. I keep saying to use the front brakes or stand up to increase air resistance, but that doesn't usually happen until they've had a couple of glasses of liquid bravery. Last run I had to get a cup of cooking oil from a pub and try and get it into the hubs to free them up. Some kind of jet engine grease would probably be the go I think.

27inch

I would think that a high temp synthetic grease would be what your looking for but keep in mind that the whole idea of how a coaster brake works is that it creates friction between the shoes and the hub body. While you may find a grease that doesn't melt at extreme temps it likely won't do much to lower the temperatures being created in extreme circumstances. For a while I lived in an area that had several 14% grades, brakes of any type on any vehicle would overheat if you didn't pay attention to what you were doing. What we found was that the only fix was to give the brakes more surface area or lessen the amount of weight that they need to stop. Disc brakes were king there, old drum brakes didn't do very well either but any hub brake did better than any rim brake Rim brakes would get so hot they would blow tires.

I would think that once a coaster hub gets hot enough to change color, its likely lost most of its temper or heat treating and likely to fail even if it can be rebuilt.

Velo Mule

That is good of you to offer on of your Bendix hub for your buddy 27inch . I hope your buddy comes to his senses and realizes that he has limited choices. If he had to pay for the Bendix it would be even more expensive than the new Shimano hub.

You could perhaps find a Shimano knock off coaster brake hub and if he looses interest in the bike quickly, that will avoid the possibility of a hub failure or rebuild. I heard that Shimano rebuild kits fit these hubs.

27inch

I'd rather give up a Bendix 76 hub because I've got a bucket of them and they rarely take much in the way of repairs.
Around this area, Bendix hubs are common, Huffy, Murray, Ross, Columbia etc all used them and those bikes are what turn up on trash piles and flea markets most often.

The pile of 28h Shimano hubs I've got here don't look very promising, even if I found a shell I doubt there's enough parts here to make a complete hub and I don't see that bike as being worth another $40 for a new hub.
Out of the 24 or so complete Shimano hubs I've got, I see at least 20 with broken flanges, a few broken axles, 8 are seized up, one is missing a flange, and a few are rusted pretty bad. All are low spoke count hubs, not a 36h in the lot. They likely came off of junked kids bikes that were trash picked over the years.

I have four or five Suntour hubs, I believe all are 'type 3' style but only one is 36h and that one has 3.2mm spoke holes.
I'm not sure why I saved these, but with Suntour gone, I suppose they're getting to be a little rare now.
I still find Bendix equipped bikes here and there, but the majority are no name branded coaster brakes made in China.
The majority of the time, if someone tosses a coaster brake bike its either because they tacoed a wheel or the rear hub is broken in some way. In general though, the type of buyer who buys a later coaster brake bike is a bit more careful with their bike than those who buy a $100 mountain bike or bmx.
In the past, I think most coaster brake bikes outlived their owners. This new stuff doesn't have that kind of quality.

cbrstar

Here's a old 70's article about brake temp. Burned Out Brake (archive.org) According to this the coaster brake on a hill got up to 900 F!! That's 482 C!. The only thing that I can think of that even gets close to that would be some kind of dry lubricant like LPS General Purpose Dry Lubricant, 0° to 852°F, Molybdenum, Net Fill 11 oz, Aerosol Can - 5YH76|02516 - Grainger . Or Graphite. Not sure how well it would work in a coaster brake. When I was a Watch Maker apprentice I was taught a old timey trick of adding graphite to grease, maybe adding it would help?

27inch

I've never used anything but regular high temp grease from the auto parts store for coaster brake internals and marine grease for the bearings.
If you need super high temp grease, look to the aircraft industry or commercial baking equipment guys. I worked at a place years ago that had a conveyor oven set up, the conveyor and moving parts all needed to be greased, and the grease was black, medium viscosity, and good to 650 degrees Fahrenheit. It was a synthetic grease.
Most silicone based greases will go that high as well but I can't say if all their properties are suited for a coaster brake.

I have a couple of bikes with Bendix RB2 hubs. There's only one or two slight grades around here, the longest is about 7% for about 1/2 mile. I'm a big guy, and on a coaster brake only bike, the rear hub gets hot enough on that little hill to sizzle water on the surface of the hub or give me some burning smell if I'm not careful. I found it does better if I'm more deliberate when stopping, vs riding the brake down gradually. It does fine for stopping, but not so well for 'regulating' speed while going down the hill.
I did see a bike one time rigged with a front coaster brake, it used a New Departure rear hub, with spring and length of chain on the sprocket up front. I also saw something similar on a concession trike, the two front wheels each had a lever operated coaster brake actuated by two cables and a splitter/rotator like is used on a BMX bike.

27inch

After digging through three boxes of old hubs, I came up with 31 Shimano hubs, 23 of which are the later style.
I tore all of them apart and tossed everything in the parts washer in the garage.
Out of 31 hubs, there's one 36h hub, and that one has a loose flange and was a 13ga spoke model.
It was still laced to a 26x1.75" steel rim. Its likely from a Worksman warehouse bike or a newer Schwinn Heavy Duti.
Out of all the internals, I have two complete sets of parts, I'm short about four axles to make four more working assemblies.
9 of the 24 later style hubs had broken or loose flanges, two had broken axles, one was just plain shredded inside, rust, dirt, and metal shavings throughout. I gave up trying to get that one apart and tossed it in the scrap pile.

I didn't do a side by side pic but these aren't has robust as an old Bendix. I really haven't spent much time trying to save one before, we always sort of considered bikes with these as disposable or if a customer came in with a blown up hub, we sold them a new wheel.
Most coaster brake bikes from this time period really weren't worth buying a new hub, plus the labor of building a new wheel. It was cheaper for the customer to just buy another wheel.

Here's what I keep finding with these hubs: (These are all likely 'D' type hubs), most from no later than the 90's or so.





Out of the whole lot of hubs, 7 have loose flanges like this one.
Both flanges on this hub are loose, one fell off and allowed the spokes to go slack on the left side. Its likely what dislodged the right side flange. I have no idea how or why, its just how I keep finding these things over and over. Stuff like this is what made me leery over the years of Shimano CB hubs. They also have less brake surface area compared to older Bendix hubs, and the hub ID is smaller. Several that I took apart had the drive clutch and shoes badly discolored from heat. The grease in those hubs was black and very thin. The OEM grease appears to be clear or yellow.
I also took apart several older '333' coaster brake hubs, four of the five I took apart had their threaded driver broke off just beyond the inner bearing. (Threaded portion had broken off). I can see where that was likely the reason for the redesign on later models.





This hub appears to have had little use, there's barely any wear pattern formed on any parts and the internal surfaces of the hub are still smooth with no wear.

If I had a good 36h - 14ga, shell, I could build a wheel but I've yet to find a good 36h hub shell.

The flange could likely be pressed back on, maybe even tig welded to prevent it from happening again but it just don't look like a sound design to me if out of such a small sample, I have so many failures, but the pile I have are all likely just hubs that were replaced for one reason or another. Since most had cut spoke nubs still hanging on, I suppose they were from complete wheels that were scrapped, and not just hubs that were discarded.
Back in the day I never threw anything out, and what they threw out at work, I took home if I thought it may give me some free parts or use in the future. Its why I've got half a garage full of old bike parts.

Velo Mule

Thanks for letting us know about your experience with Shimano Coaster brake hubs 27inch . SquidPuppet would be disappointed. He was an advocate of the Shimano hub and used it on many of his projects.

When I worked in a bike shop in the early '80's, we rebuilt coaster brakes. I don't remember rebuilding SunTours at that time, only Shimano and Bendix. This would have been the time frame where SunTour coaster brakes would have been popular, but I think I remember only working on one at the time and I don't remember what the issue was or if it could be rebuilt. Most of the coaster brakes that came in for repairs were for grease drying up and nuts getting loose causing problems.

I know there is plenty of bad press for the SunTour coaster brake, but maybe they improved over the time and suffer from a reputation based on their first edition. When I rebuilt the SunTour coaster brake that I have in my stash about 2 years ago, I was specifically looking for wear, weak points or where these hubs were inadequate. It seemed ok to me. The only comment is that the diameter of the SunTour hub is smaller than the Bendix.

I still hope your buddy goes for a Bendix hub. They are the best. And it sounds like you have spares if you ever need them.

27inch

This is the Suntour hub style we always had trouble with, the wire spring that kept the two clutch dogs in place was always broken, it would lose the tip or last bend and the dog would drag the inside of the hub. This style had nothing in common with any other of their hubs. We pretty much considered these junk, but they only showed up on smaller bikes, I don't think I ever saw one on an adult bike.




No parts of these interchanged with the other more common Suntour hubs other than maybe the axle or lock nuts.
We never bothered to fix these, they all got replaced. I only have these parts, they just happened to get tossed into the box with the Type III parts.

Shimano hubs weren't very common back when I was working in a shop, they were out there but none of the brands we sold used them that I can remember.
It was either Suntour, Bendix, New Departure, or Nankai (ND model D copy), Perry, Komet, Centrix, and Durex. The Shimano hubs were looked at as inferior by most of us, so much so that the shop owner avoided bikes with them. I never questioned him as to why, but it was the only brand he had issue with back then.
We did have a few models with Shimano 333 3 speeds and various Shimano derailleurs and road bike hubs. We saw a lot of Suntour 3 speed hubs, which were mostly just a Sturmey Archer copy.

27inch

Here's a comparison of a 1950's era Bendix (left) and Shimano model D (Right)
The Bendix is a good bit larger in diameter with much better fit and finish. Its also a one piece design.




Here's a few different Shimano styles I found:



This is the type of Shimano I remember being a problem, we saw a handful of these with the driver breaking off between the hub bearing and threaded section.
Most were on kids bikes but we did see a few of these on lesser brand bikes on occasion.




Here's a comparison between the hub shells, a Type A on the far left, then Type B and Type D onthe far right.
The only difference I see between the type B and Type D is some minor machining changes on the far left side of the braking surface.
All three use press fit spoke flanges, which don't seem to take much to knock off. All three of these had flanges that had fallen off, I aligned them and pressed them back
in place using a huge vise a piece of 2" brass pipe and a block of hardwood. The flanges seem to go right back on but I'm not a fan of the design.

I don't have a model E to compare to, those were likely newer than my days accumulating parts. My days in a bike shop ended in the early 80's for the most part but I did keep tinkering a bit at home for a few more years. Most of my parts stash is older, 50's to the mid to late 70's.
I think the Model E is a 1984, (marked IE), the Model A is likely older but is marked (SH), and the model B has no markings that I can find.
Most of these came from the scrap hub bin at the shop I worked at years ago, most were one's I brought home for parts, some are from when the owner there retired and closed up the place in or around 1992 or so.

All of this is just for comparison though, none of these are candidates for the conversion at hand. If I get some time this week I want to see if I have any complete Nankai - ND model D knockoffs, if I do, I think that's what'll go into that conversion.
I mentioned buying a new Shimano Mode E110 to him, but after he researched it, he came back and said that the model E was too new for his bike, and not period correct.
He's funny that way. He wants to convert a bike that was built with a 5 speed derailleur set up to coaster brake and still keep it all original.
I think if the Shimano model D or if the Suntour type 3 were for 14ga spokes, I'd likely use either one. I even dug around to see if I had a set of 12ga spokes but I only have enough for one wheel and I don't think I've got any nipples for them.

vintagebicycle

That style Suntour CB was a one or two year only model, they popped up in the late 70's for a year or two and then they changed to a new design. As I recall, nothing, not even the nuts or axle are the same. One was 26tpi, the other 24tpi. The design was supposed to be a lower drag design but I suppose they proved to be unreliable.
Their big downfall though was later on, toward the end of production in the early 90's when a run of bad springs began to fail causing a slew of warranty issues and a recall.
The hubs in general weren't bad after that first version. The faulty spring models were mostly recalled, I haven't run into a failed one in 20 years or more and even then they were few and far between. I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that most coaster brake bikes sold in the 90's were likely beach cruisers sold to senior citizens and small kids bikes. Back in the day, we actually never knew about the spring issue until the recall, then they started to surface. Some got new hubs, some bikes got bought back, and some owners likely no longer owned the bike by the time the recall came about.
The shop that I worked at back then sold a lot of beach cruisers but most were second tier brand bikes, only a few better models had name brand hubs by that time.

Shimano had their share of issues too, between several redesigns, and the issues with broken / dislodged flanges, by the time they got a foothold in the market, there were more knockoff copies than the real thing. By the late 80's nearly all the 'Shimano' style coaster brakes were not made by Shimano.
The last version, the E110, isn't a bad hub, and likely has the least rolling resistance of any coaster brake besides their 'A' type.

The Nankai, (and the ND model D) both have a lot of rolling drag due to the disc type brake. I also believe that the Nankai used pressed on flanges like the Shimano and I've seen a few of them come apart with hard use too.