Bike Rebel

I just bought a 1972 Raleigh Super Course and for the life of me I can't figure out how to service these Normandy hubs? Anyone have some advice?

juvela

with cone wrenches; 13mm front and 15mm rear. btw - those do not look like a normandy/maillard product. can you post a photo of the barrel(s)?

there IS a dustcap there as a separate piece of metal. it is machined over to give a one-piece look. be careful not to pop it out as it cannot then be reseated.

hubs appear to be five-piece shells which normandy did not manufacture. spokes are robergel trois etoiles which raleigh would not have used on this model. do not think wheels could be original to bicycle.

are barrel's unmarked?

verktyg 

The QR is definitely Normandy (Atom) but I've never seen that type of flange before... It's very thin, maybe very early Normandy???

As @juvela mentioned, don't try to remove the rolled in dust caps.

Normandy hubs from the early 60's with round holes. No removable dust caps.



Normandy Sport hubs from the late 1960's to the 1980's with removable dust caps.


Normandy Luxe Competition hubs from the late 1960's until the early 1970's. No removable dust caps.



Normandy Luxe Competition hubs from the mid 1970's with plastic removable dust caps.



On Normandy hubs without removable dust caps, I remove the axles and throw away the old balls. Then I use Q-Tips to remove all of the old grease. I finish cleaning up the hub cups with Q-Tips soaked in solvent to finish the cleanup.

Cones for Normandy Sport hubs are still available. The replacement cones for the Normandy Luxe Competition hubs were discontinued in the mid 70's and are almost impossible to find. They have an odd shape and odd diameter. they came on Peugeot PX-10s from ~1967 through 1974. Gitane used them on Tour de France models from the late 16's until ~1972.

verktyg

Chas.

juvela

WOW!

thanks so much for this great post on maillard products verktyg.

found this wiki listing for the company founder maurice maillard:

https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maillard_(producteur)

it would be great if you could post your maillard information at CR as their maillard page is little more than a pageholder. am sure a great many readers would very much appreciate it.

Maiilard~ Normandy hubs

---------

returning to o.p.'s question -

do not think hubs any manner of a maillard product. this five-piece hub is from italy. they come through with either an unmarked barrel or a marking which says only "made in italy" in small block letters. folks have speculated on the manufacturer; some have suggested gnutti. flanges are thin because they are formed of stamped sheet. one downside of this swaged together design is that the drive-side flange of the rear hub can work loose with use.

wheels must have been assembled by an individual as no factory would combine an italian economy hub with an atom skewer and robergel trois etoiles spokes.

Focus1

verktyg,

You mentioned that cones for the Normandy Sport hubs are still available. I have a '73 Raleigh Grand Prix that I'm rebuilding that has these hubs; and I need new cones. Are these available any place other than ebay?

Vintage Raleigh

x2 I too have a Grand Prix and need NOS F&R axle sets if anyone has available.

Front I replaced with a modern axle but has a wider OLD, finding an original axle would save me cold setting the forks.
The rear's ok but before me the bike had a hard life so want to replace the axles and cones as a matter of course.

verktyg 

Millions of Normandy Sport hubs were produced between the 1960's and the 1980's. The majority of Schwinn derailleur bikes made between the 60's and mid 70's used Normandy Sport hubs or Schwinn Approved hubs made by Normandy.

Normandy Sport hubs



Schwinn Approved Normandy hubs - different shaped holes in flanges and quick releases marked Schwinn Approved.



First place that I'd check is an older bike shop that sold Schwinns. Also any shop that dates back to the 70's may have some replacement cones for Normandy Sport hubs.

Another suggestion, shop around thrift stores and bike co-ops, you may be able to find a wheel or just a Normandy hub for very little money... You may even find a "donor" bike for $25.00. Use what you need, sell the frame to a fixie-fool for $50.00!

Parts Breakdown: Rear Hollow Axle Cones # 3154. Complete Axle Set # 3162



The Normandy Sport rear cone dimensions are approximately 17.75mm Diameter x 12.2mm Long with 10mm x 1mm threads.

You may be able to find some other brand of cones that will work for you. Wheels Manufacturing makes some replacement cones for Joytech hubs that may (or may not) fit. Part # CN-R081. You can probably buy these direct. They may be able to tell you if these will not work....



@Vintage Raleigh I don't know about what's available in OZ as far as 2nd hand shops go... Again, if you can find a complete used wheel or hub to cannibalize, that may be your best bet for replacement cones.

Congrats on beating the Poms at The Ashes last summer... Still can't figure out the game???

verktyg

Chas.

juvela

NORMANDY French bicycle hub bearing cone - 5/16" X 26T - EACH

verktyg 

Those cones are for front axles that were used on BMX hubs. 5/16" = 7.92mm

NOS Maillard Atom-Normandy Front 3132 HUB AXLE 5/16 x 26tpi x 132mm OLD BMX #4

Normandy Road Hub Axles:

Front 9mm x 1mm
Rear 10mm x 1mm


verktyg

Chas.

verktyg 

NOS Rear Millard Atom-Normandy 3126 HUB AXLES 9/10mm x 1.0 x 132mm Hollow QR #18

Buy It Now $14.00

Normandy Sport Rear Axle Replacement Kit w/Cones Part # 3126

Public Service Message - No Relation To Seller


verktyg

Chas.

Focus1

Many thanks, verktyg!

Vintage Raleigh

Hi there Chas, thanks for all the info - have messaged that seller too! In Melbourne there's pockets of individuals doing their own thing with classic bikes, largely unnoticed. I stumbled across a gent 5 min down the road who had a dozen Raleigh's mainly Westwood rimmed roadsters. But he did have a SBDU team bike bought from a seller in New Zealand. Some fairly knowledgable shop owners but don't sell anything old or if they do its in sad condition. A couple of artisan mechanics across town with lots of vintage parts but only for their own builds. Found a guy who does restores from home he's building some wheels for me for the international, glad I met him. Most bike stores focus on new plastic bikes. There is a vintage cycle club here - the founder is only interested in bikes up to 1910. Some regular swap meets go on but the sellers are reluctant to part stuff out - single hub etc. my problem is when I find a donor bike I don't have the heart to cannibalise, and then become an unfinished project. Cheers, Matthew

juvela

two questions regarding maillard axle parts -

a) on luxe competition model are the parts for the g3 the same as those for g1 and g2?

b) on 700's are parts the same for the g1 and the g2?

verktyg 

@juvela I don't know what g1, g2 or g3 means???

There's a WHOLE lot of misinformation and errors posted about Normandy/Atom/Maillard hubs on the internet.

Normandy, Atom and Maillard were separate companies that dated back to the 1930's. Over time they became part of Mallard which was taken over by Sachs a German company, in 1980.

This information is limited to the 1960's through early 1980's.

During that period, Atom hubs were the small flange versions. They were some of the cheaper hubs from that era and most of them were sold with nutted axles. After the mid 70's they started being sold with hollow quick release axles. The front hubs had distinctive squared off shoulders next to the flanges.



The Normandy Sport models were the large flange versions of these lower priced hubs. At the beginning of the bike boom many of these hubs came with nutted axles for hex nuts or wing nuts.

Those hubs came with round holes in the flanges until the mid 60's when they switched to kidney bean shaped holes. The early versions with round holes didn't have removable dust caps. The later versions did have them.

Schwinn used a lot of the Normandy Sport hubs and most of them that were marked "Schwinn Approved" had triangular shaped holes in the flanges.



This parts list that I previously posted shows Atom and Normandy used the same axles. Nutted axles were 8mm x 1mm front and 9.5mm x 1mm rear. Hollow QR axles were 9mm x 1mm front and 10mm x 1mm rear. The hub shells were interchangeable between Atom and Normand plus solid and hollow axes.



The early quick releases had M M Atom on the levers. They worked very well. They had chrome plated steel adjusting nuts. For some unknown reason, Peugeot used Simplex quick releases on their PX-10 bikes rather than the better Normandy.Atom QRs.



In the mid 70's the adjusting nuts started coming with black plastic covers over the ends of the steel portions. There were at least 3 different versions.



I've exceeded number of photo in this message - see next message...

verktyg

Chas.

verktyg 

Atom and Normandy were very inexpensive hubs. In the 70's we used to import machine built wheels from Andre Bertin/Milremo. They had Super Champion Model 58 alloy rims with stainless steel spokes and Atom small flange or Normandy large flange hubs. They cost us about $6.00 USD per wheel. we used them to fill up the containers that our Bertin bikes came in so the shipping costs were nil.

We imported replacement parts for those hubs too. Since they came on millions of bikes from the 60's through the early 80's there was a demand for those parts. We wholesaled most of the parts to shops around the US.

The cones came in bags of 50 and cost about $5.00 USD or $.10 each. We inspected the cones for pits in the ball race tracks and ended up trowing about 10% to 20% of them away!



They were made out of a low quality steel on automatic screw machines. After machining they were heat treated to give them a case hardened surface which was ~60 Rc hardness from .005" to .025" deep. They were oiled to prevent corrosion and bagged up with the as machined finish on the bearing surfaces. The steel under the hardened surface was soft and wore out quickly!


Photos by Bob Hanson - Strongtlight93 on Flickr


Now to answer the questions about Normandy Luxe Competition hubs. As I mentioned in post #3 above, there were a number of versions of those hubs.

The first generation models were popular on mid to high end French bikes from the mid 60's until the early 70's. They came on Peugeot PX-10 bikes from 1967 until 1973. Gitane Tour de France models came with them from 1968 to ~1972 too. So did early 70's Motobecane Grand records.

VeloBase.com - Component: Normandy Luxe Competition (gold label)

They were much better made than the Normandy Sports hubs with better quality axles and finish ground through hardened cubs and cones. With good cones and cups plus fresh grease they spun just about as smoothly as Campy NR hubs.

The one drawback was they didn't have removable dust caps and are a PIA to cleans and repack the bearings. Also Normandy discontinued making replacement cones for those hubs about 1975. The cones had a very large radius in the bearing track area so they look almost straight.

Normandy Luxe Competition Cone Dimensions - 1967-1973 Style (Tolerance .1mm to .2mm - .004" to .008")



The openings in the hubs that I measured ranged from 16.5mm to 16.9mm which provides lots of room for dirt and water to get into the bearings. 1967 hub and 1973 hub.



Simple solution to the problem - O-Rings over the cones to keep crud out...



In 1973 Normandy Luxe Competition hubs moved from top of the line to the middle being replaced by the new Maillard 700 hubs. The new style hubs had red plastic dust seals with a closer fit to the cones. They were available with both small and large flanges plus drillings for 28. 32 and 36 spokes.



Some of the early hubs used the same 15.5mm diameter cones as the earlier versions. The later styles had 17.75mm cones, the same diameter as the Normandy Sport hubs (maybe the same cones???).

The last versions of these hubs had metal dust caps.




Over the years there were a lot of variations in the Maillard 700 hubs. They had cones as good as those used in Campy NR hubs. the original versions had 9mm x 1mm front axles and 10 x1mm rears. Some of the later ones used fine pitch threads.



The early 700 hubs had 96mm OLN front axles and 122mm or 126mm rears.

I haven't gotten around to get all the specs for Maillard 700 hubs or Helicomatic hubs either.

All of the hubs listed above were also private labeled with the Milremo brand. The Milremo marque was shared by Andre Bertin in France and Ron Kitching in the UK.

Hope this helps a little to clear up some of the mud...

verktyg

Chas.

juvela

Yikes!

thanks so much for sharing this super thorough illustrated treatise on their products.

much appreciated here.

apologies for any confusion with g1, g2, g3 designations. just a means to indicate the differing periods or generations of the models. had plenty of experience with first and second generation luxe competition but none with third, hence me question.

likewise with the 700. only have experience of first generation so had always wondered about second.

thank you again for all of this fabulous information!