miamijim

Yes and no. If the hub in question as the proper spacing bewteen the hub flange and low gear cog and the spacers can be moved around or removed/replaced it can be used. For instance, looking at Shimano schematics it appears a FH-7700 hub may be adaptable but a FH-7800 hub is NOT.

RobbieTunes

I don't cold set, but I've run across a few frames in the past where, if I knew I could do this, I'd have set up 2x10 in a heartbeat on some beautiful old hubs, dropped in a 105 RD/FD/Crank set, a pair of DA 2x10 DT shifters, and maintained an elegant bike with modern setup. I'm glad to know it can be done.

TejanoTrackie 

Sorry, I guess I didn't state my idea clearly. What I meant was that I would keep my 126mm frame intact at 126mm (not cold set it) and spread the dropouts (elastically-no permanent deformation) whenever I inserted or removed the 128mm OLD hub. The effort required to spread a frame 2mm is a lot less than 4mm. It seems to me that cutting the hub spacing down 2mm is also easier than 4mm. No need to source rare 0.5mm spacers. I have a similar situation with a 120mm spaced frame and a 122mm OLD hub which carries a regularly spaced 6-speed freewheel. I didn't mean to diminish what you have done, which is extremely clever and well thought out.

miamijim

Sure but where are going to remove the 2 mm of spacing from on a 130mm hub? The problem is that there isnt a single 1 mm spacer on either side. If you remove 2mm from the left side and redish you may have too much dish. There are work arounds, you could interchange lock nuts etc....

zacster

I didn't read the details, but I've been running a 10sp/130 wheel on a 126 bike for 5 years now. I haven't had a single problem. I didn't do anything but mount the wheel on the frame as is. It works flawlessly and is dead quiet. I'm using friction shifters and a Nuovo Record derailleur. I didn't really give it any thought, other than it was a tight fit the first time I tried it.

miamijim

This is what most people do and it works but unseen forces are acting on your axles and dropout faces. If its a steel frame you might want to have the dropouts and faces cold set which negates the forces and will extend dropout and axle life.

Again, the sole purpose of this thread was to see if 10s could be run on a 126mm without compromising wheeldish. There are a small number of frames that shouldnt be cold set or flexed open. I was looking for a solution for thoose who have 126mm frames.

If your frame can be cold set of flexed open this thread isnt for you.

Geo_08

I have a set of wh-r540 8 speed, which despite the mixed reviews I love. I just reveived an older Klein with 126mm spacing, Is it possible to redish this wheel or should I stick with the more traditional hubs? I also have a set of rolf vector Comps , which if i can find the bearings to rebuild might be an option as well.

There is a 3.7 mm axel spacer on the right side and a 5.5mm axel spacer on the left, if that helps at all.

https://techdocs.shimano.com/media/te...9830728611.pdf

bikemore 

Just wanted to bump this thread because it is a pretty cool idea. Still need to read Jim's description to get the details right. Dish seems to be the deal.

gmhoover

Got my hands on a 84 Specialized Expedition that wasn't cold set and the previous owner jammed a 135OLD Tourney hub into. Once removed it springs back to 127-128. Wondering what 126 hub to look for?

dddd

Although this is a zombie thread, I haven't read it before. I do a lot of rear hub re-spacings for all kinds of reasons so this is good stuff to read. Usually i am wanting to use a freewheel with added # of speeds, then also preserving axle strength by use of shortest-possible driveside axle overhang.
Sometimes modern chain allows me to leave little more than 3mm between the dropout and the face of the small cog, and I have a box full of locknuts with different thicknesses for fine-tuning axle width.

7s, 126mm freehubs usually can be instantly made into 124mm width by removing a 1mm washer from each end of the axle assembly (with no re-dish).

gmhoover, what are you trying to accomplish with your Expedition in terms of the rear hub?

gmhoover

Ideally, I would like to get a 126 or 130 OLD hub thats 9 spd. I was looking for older Ultegra because I wanted to go with a 9spd ultegra hyperglide casette. I have never built a wheel before but planned on removing the spokes and re-using the rim.I am a complete newb and just learning about axle spacing. The bike was a craigslist find, and I couldnt get it to shift properly with any amount of limit and b screw tuning. Then I realized the dropout didn't look straight and the derailleur hanger was at an angle.

dddd

You might want to start hunting for a good 8s freehub with 36 spoke holes, most out there will tend to be 32 holes with the better Shimano 9s hubs anyway.

You will have to be prepared to test the effect on chain clearance after perhaps removing 1mm from each end of the axle assembly's stack. 128mm in a 126mm frame is unnoticeable in terms of installing the wheel unless perhaps some old, square-edged locknuts are used. Different hubs also have different locknut thicknesses that you can experiment with when no thin washer is present that could be conveniently removed.
Beginning with 8s hubs, the clearance between the chain and the frame tightened up to where I don't think that more than 1mm can ever be removed from the drive-side, so good luck with narrowing the drive-side axle stack.

zachleft

I'm looking to buy a early to mid 90s Cannondale R or SR frame with the cantilever drops and would love to increase the number of gears from 7 to at least 8. The ones I've looked at have 126mm drops (the reason I ended up here) and have a freewheel rather than a hub and cassette. They're aluminum so no shot of cold setting unfortunately.

I'd also like to convert from downtube shifters to brifters, but in threads on other sites I've had people tell me that it wouldn't be possible to convert from downtube shifters to brifters and/or that I should use friction shifting. But pictures and anecdotal evidence says otherwise.

Tl;dr I want to buy a mid 90s Cannondale and give it modern components

Anyway my understanding is that I'd first off have to buy new wheel(s) in order to put fit a hub/cassette back there onto the flange, right?

I guess I'm just confused where I'd go from there. Is this a "there's more than one way to shave a cat" situation? I'm seeing a lot of references to spacers - as in those spacers on the axle or hub spacers?

Also in this picture, if I'm understand this correctly, you want to adjust the wheel dish so the rim/tire are centered along the shaded area?

Kilroy1988 

Totally possible. We have a very long thread full of cool bikes for proof of that...

https://www.bikeforums.net/classic-v...i-s-ergos.html

-Gregory

KCT1986

The Cannondale catalog for 1994 list many of the road models with the cantilever dropouts with 8 speed groupsets. Would be surprising if they were still using 126mm rears, at least in the later cantilevered years.

Suggest you post a specific thread about the rear spacing and see if anyone knows which years have the cantis and 130mm.

zachleft

I'll def be checking this out, thanks

There's two I'm looking at: a '96 R500 and a '92 R400. Both happen to be 7 speed unfortunately. The R400 is 126mm based on the serial number the seller gave me so I assume the R500 is as well.

And the cantis were made from '89-'97. But yeah that's a good call, I may just make a new thread

Moisture

Theres also a factor of whether your friction shifters and derailer can shift through all those ratios. Most can.

What about a 120mm OLD? How many gears can you shove in there?

icemilkcoffee 

If you just want to convert to brifters, the path of least resistance would be to replace the freewheel with a 7 speed freewheel, and then run 2X7 RSX, Sora, Tourney, or Microshift R7 brifters.

Road Fan

When you make one of these conversions, what about chainline? Doesn't the cassette move a few mm towards the bike centerline? To stay aligned with the front, shouldn't the front chainline be moved inboard the same amount?

easyupbug 

I have found that for typical tuning that is true. That said my Vitus 979 (aluminum 126) with 9 speed, DA hubs and 1,000s of miles at our flat land winter place I nudge the front chain line out as I am mostly always in the small cogs, will no doubt increase chain wear in the small ring and large cogs but seldom in large cogs and never up on the pedals trying to get up an incline. At our summer place in the foothills I nudge my bike's front chainline inward. I have to take some care as a cross chaining from inner ring to small cog can brush the large ring and on one FD I found it bottomed out on the ST before getting where I wanted.

wesley77803

Edit: Picture removed from the quote since the system told me I could not post pictures or urls due to number of posts.

The center of the rim would be along the left edge of the shaded area. (Half of the rim is inside the shaded area, half of the rim is outside the shaded area.)

You would either have to replace the wheel or rebuild the wheel with a newer hub.

If you only want to go to 8 speeds, take a look at Sheldon Brown's website for 8 of 9 on 7 or 9 of 10 on 7. You would use the 9 or 10 speed shifter and disable the last shift with the rear derailleur limit stop.

Almost all of the "spacers" refer to axle spacers. The one that definitely does not is in post 9 and quoted in 13 where the question was about a 1 mm spacer used to make a 10 sp cassette tighten on a 8/9/10 speed hub.

If you search the forums there have been discussions that suggest you can fit a 130 OLD hub into a 126 aluminum frame without cold setting (just squeeze it in). I have not tried it on an aluminum frame. It works on steel frames.

You may also want to take a look at a first generation powertap hub. The one I pulled out of my parts bin measured 129 but looked like it had a removable spacer/washer on either side that would probably take it down to 127. The second generation did not appear to have similar washers.

zachleft

This is all very helpful so thank you. And what did you mean by this?

"8 of 9 on 7 or 9 of 10 on 7"

dddd

By 1992 even the Cannondale road bikes with 7s rear freehubs were ALL spaced at 130mm.

Some may not realize that 7s freehubs came in 126mm, 130mm and 135mm flavors, and that nearly all OEM freehubs had become 130mm (road) or 135mm (hybrid/mtb) during the early 90's.

I don't know of any bike shop bikes that came with 126mm spacing after 1992, except perhaps juvenile bikes or single-speeds. Road standard was 130mm and hybrid/mtb was 135mm from this point on.

Also, many frames from around 1988 or so came with 128mm spacing. But no freehubs were sold with such spacing, so it was intended that the frame could conform to a 2mm required flex in either direction with no issues.
And since freehubs had finally removed much or most cyclic drive-side axle flex, issues of axle and dropout fatigue suddenly became virtual non-issues.

The Davidson Stiletto I just bought has 128mm spacing, for either 126mm or 130mm hubs. The frame has no serial number so I don't know when it was made.

icemilkcoffee 

Axle bending is a thing of the past, but each step from 7 speed to 8,9,10 speed, and then to 11 speed- each of those ‘progress’ steps increased the rear wheel dish. So what is a built-in weakness on all derailleur bikes, became worse and worse with each subsequent generation.
Which is why I don’t like the entire premise of this thread - putting an 8+ speed hub in a 126mm opening and re-dishing the wheel in the bad direction.
I come back to my stance that 126mm is perfect, and 7 speed is perfect enough. Just leave perfection alone.

dddd

If 126mm 7s is perfect, then the wheel structure can still be just as perfect with greater dish, as long as the rim drillng has offset, the rim is stronger, or the rider is perhaps lighter and/or gentler.
In other words, it's all relative.
Achieving uniform same-side spoke tensions is yet another way to help make up for added dish, won't do much for stiffness but surely improves the durability of the wheel.

It seems like a great convenience to be able to juggle the numbers with spacings and dishing, in order to accomodate parts and frames that are already paid for.