Road Fan

For a good friend I am refurbishing matching his and hers bikes. They bought the bikes when they were married 50 years ago, instead of using their honeymoon money for, well, a honeymoon. (sheesh, kids!!!) The front wheels are about 95 mm OLD and the rears have 5-speed clusters, so the rear skewers need to work for 120 mm OLD. I thought I would find some brand like Joytech, Sunrise, or Sanshin on E-bay, but no luck. The frames are being painted and parts cleaned, but the skewers do not need to be in fine perfect condition. The painter will clean up all surfaces and alighn the frames, so any QR in good condition with a good locking mechanism should work. The originals are Campy-style with a side-cam lever. The problem is that the old cams do not move the cap in and out very far. I would rather just get decent replacements than worry about whether the original cam material has enough integrity for another 50 years of casual riding.

The restoration is a sensitive but functional rebuild. Absolute originality is not going to happen. The original quality was similar to a Super Course based on tubing, but they are not Raleigh products.

My friends spend their honeymoon money on the bikes and a car vacation to do a bunch of little tours, so these bikes have huge sentimental value for them. I already tried to talk them into some very decent more modern bikes, but they are not interested. So I really need to get some good functional QR skewers of the correct lengths.

Just to be clear, I need two that will fit 95 mm OLD and two that will fit 120 mm OLD.

oneclick 

The 120 should not be difficult, but the 95 might be.

I measured a few front skewers, from the face of the cam-flange to the start of the thread. Some skewers had a bit of a shoulder inboard of the thread start, so the adjustable nut could possibly move a bit further inward.

MMAtom 106mm
Campy Record 105mm
Campy Tipo 104mm
Suntour 102mm
Gipiemme 102mm
Joytech 98mm
Suzue 97mm
Spidel/Maillard (side-cam) 95mm
Simplex (centre-cam) 92/90mm (two examples)
and most curiously -
an anonymous nasty modern thing with that aluminium fork-type lever and a plastic female cam 90mm

If your OLN is 95mm and the dropouts are 4mm each you're probably good with anything less than 100.

Nubra 

Really nice project Road Fan I don't have any skewers for you but just wanted to say this is my favorite type of project. They may not ride them a lot, but they are reliving their memories.

Road Fan

I did some more measurements. The OLN of the front wheels is 97 mm, and on the rear wheels it's 123 mm. I don't have the bikes in front of me, but the fork ends and dropouts are definitely stamped, so much less than 8 mm. The rear drive side also has a derailleur claw, so I assume another 4 mm. The closed width across the skewer pressure faces, by those assumptions, is 105 mm front and 135 mm rear, allowing 8 mm for the pair of dropouts and 4 mm for the derailleur claw. Without any added spacers outboard of locknuts, the front needs to close and lock at 105 mm and the rear similarly at 135 mm between the clamp end and the threaded nut end.

So the OLNs are 97 front and 123 rear, and the clamp to clamp when closed is 105 front and 135 rear.

Nubra and all, thanks for the kind words!

SJX426 

@Road Fan - Ideally they would match but how much variation is acceptable?

Road Fan

I don't think I know enough to establish such a tolerance, on any technical basis. I would assume 2 mm oversize is acceptable, but an undersize is not, since good QRs open about 3 mm when loosened. It needs to be easy for my friends to put their wheels on without unusual effort considering their age. They know how to r/r the wheels on these bicycles, having lived with them all their lives. It's a fail for me to give them a result which requires them to learn new skills.

So if the front OLN is 97, a front QR that works for 100 mm should be ok. I can't further define the limits. If it was my bike, I would like the dimensions to be as new. There is no sign the wheels were ever overhauled, so I assume the measured OLN is the original OLN. The front bearings had fractured and split balls, and the chain was worn beyond the Park tool limits. With the bearings overhauled and adjusted they measure as I stated. I haven't yet torn down the rear hubs, but the wheels measure 123 mm. I don't yet know how to remove the freewheels. They need a trip to Pastor Bob. Conventional wisdom says the rear OLN should be 120 mm, but it is what it is.

When I receive the frames, I can deal with a mis-adjustment in the rear, since I have the Park frame adjustment tool (looks like what a Game of Thrones foot-soldier would carry in addition to a sword) and a dropout adjuster, and I can use Sheldon's ideas for fixturing the frame. I don't have fork clamping tools (based on lack of a vise/workbench) to be able to straighten or adjust its spacing.

So I'm still interested in a pair of front wheel QR skewers (I have springs, not a concern) with nuts for 97 to 100 mm OLN and a pair of skewers with nuts for 120 to 123 mm OLN