Recently refurbished my 1970 Dunelt from nasty barn find to a respectable gentleman's city bike. This 23" frame is such a joy to ride! All parts are original except the tires and tubes. Swapped out the tired Brooks mattress saddle for a proper Brooks B72.
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"Ride a Wheel on Sheffield Steel"
I like Dunelts. Someone swiped mine a few years back.

I have my eye on a Dunelt right now actually. That’s a good looking ride @JIMBO53

I like the fancier lugs on them than my 2 Hercules.

A technical question for the group:

I've finally come up with a Raleigh Tourist rear wheel (Sturmey-Archer AW hub, 1972 if my memory is holding) for converting my Flying Pigeon single speed (with the rim that chews up tubes) to a three speed. Of course, the width of the rear dropouts on the frame is wider than British standard, and I'm not really keen on bending the rear inward. Yeah, I don't trust Chinese steel that much, plus the matter of alignment, plus I may someday want to go back to the single speed.

The simple solution is to spacer the difference (approximately 8mm per side) either by stacking washers, or, preferably, coming up with a solid drilled-out metal spacer, preferably going for the latter in the hopes that it'll give a bit of extra strength to the hub axle covering the distance. Will this proposed setup cause bending in the Sturmey-Archer axle (I weigh approximately 175 lbs) in normal use? Anyone here have experience with doing something like this in the past?

Outside opinions very welcome.

You can pull that off if you have the spacers made from a single bit of metal (IOW not using washers) so that the axle can't flex. But the bigger problem that will likely shoot this down is that the axle isn't long enough to do this. You may have some thread left over, but not enough to secure the nuts properly, so they will strip. Cold-setting the frame sounds easier and how to do this properly is well documented. If you ever want to go single speed again, get a single speed hub that is the same over-locknut (OLD) dimensions as the SA hub.

Hit my local Ace Hardware this morning (you should see their fasteners aisle!) and came up with a couple of proper width steel chrome spacers bored 3/8" with 3/16" wall thickness. They're far and away the heaviest alternative available, so I'm assuming this'll add a bit of structural rigidity to the assembly. Putting the wheel on, I found that by removing both the rear rack and massive kickstand (we're talking 1920's motorcycle kickstand - I think my old Indian 101 Scout had the same stand), I've narrowed it down to the point that the non-drive side nut bolts on with 1-2 threads on the axle showing. I'm assuming the drive side indicator chain bolt is fitting about the same.

Set up this way, the wheel is slightly to the left of the center line on the fender, so I can probably do something a bit narrower on the right side spacer and have the bolted down setup drag the wheel back closer to center. Big hold-up right now is that I need to add a couple of links to the chain, as I'm replacing the original 20t rear sprocket with a 23t.

I'm optimistic.

You are lucky - I needed some M7x1.0 hex head bolts for a project and could not get them *anywhere*. The local "hardware" stores (Depot, Lowes, Rona, Canadian Tire) have more selection in build it yourself furniture then they do for hardware. Ended up buying them on Amazon with free delivery next day, but I'd prefer to buy local.

I have done what you are doing though not 8mm per side; no problems so far!

Check and see if the hub is centered, and that you get a good driveline with the chain straight to the chainwheel on the crank. If so, don't shift it; instead use a spoke wrench to take the dish out of the wheel (for this you have to know a bit about wheel alignment, if you don't, look it up on the web, its not hard). The hub allows you to move the sprocket back and forth a bit to fine tune the driveline. This is done by changing the spacers around (there are two, plus the sprocket itself) and often the sprocket is dished so you can reverse it if needed. If you do this right you may have to work with the spokes.

I’m figuring out the chain line next, not exactly easy since we’re talk full chain case and it’s mostly one piece unlike the vintage British bikes. Well used to dishing wheels.

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My shifter won’t stay in low. Is there someone on here that fixes these?

Your cable appears to be bad or bent. I would replace that first. Roger

So the problem is you have to manually push the catch down from the top to get it stay in low which is almost impossible to do when riding. Cable seems to work smoothly. Bought a SA trigger shifter to put on it for now.

It's a very precise little system.
A small kink or frayed wire inside the housing can mess things up.
A nice clean sweep to the cable stop helps as well.
Sometimes the trigger itself is worn/bent etc.
Your's looks good.

Restoring an English 3 speed hub (not on an English bike!)
 

Some of you might remember I posted about restoring my 1972 Raleigh Sports a couple of years ago. Something not done in that restoration was servicing the Sturmey Archer AW 3 speed hub. I've been wanting to do that, but a bit leery of it. Finally got the idea of practicing on my late wife's old bike which has a Sturmey Archer S3C hub - 3 speeds with a coaster brake. So the hub is English! The rest is Schwinn (a Collegiate from 1981 or 82). Anyway, here's a web page describing the restoration of the Collegiate, but mostly concentrating on the hub. Attached below is a photo of the restored Collegiate.
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Very nice!

I’ll put on a new cable when I put the other shifter on and set the whole assembly to the side. I wish it wasn’t riveted together. I don’t want to mess it up trying to get in it but I’m betting someone on here has before.

Yeah, there are previous posts where they've been taken apart cleaned/polished and re riveted.
But they're usually pretty bullet proof.
Unless there's a dent or a broken spring it should work.

'

I've fixed a couple of Sturmey Archer thumb shifters that would not stay in gear due to weak pawl springs. The shift cable is under the most tension in low gear, so, if the spring is the problem, that is where you would expect the problem to be most pronounced. There are two ways I dealt with the weak spring:
1. Drive out the rivet holding the spring in the shifter, bend the spring so that it applies more pressure, and reinstall. Dealing with the rivet, particularly during re-installation is fiddly. The rivets on your Hercules shifter have much larger heads than the Sturmey shifters that I've worked on.
2. Install a shim under the backside of the spring so that it applies more pressure to the pawl. You'll want to make the shim to that it is positively retained under the spring, otherwise it might vibrate out of position. I was able to do this without disassembling the shifter. I did it on a bike I owned in college, and it worked fine for the year or so that I rode the bike, but is certainly less elegant that the first fix.

Another possibility is that the low gear pawl stop (or whatever it's properly called) is worn round and will no longer engage the pawl. I've never encountered this, but imagine you could deal with it by disassembling the shifter and filing the stop back square. You might find that you also have to remove a similar amount of metal from the middle and high gear stops in order to maintain the correct amount of cable pull between the gears.

All of the above assumes that your Hercules shifter uses the same internal mechanism as the Sturmey shifters.

-Carl

Thanks for the advise @cszipper !

I don't know if I missed part of the discussion, but do check the cable adjustment before disassembling the shifter. Most every time with mine (I've had about 10 pop out of 1st), it's been cable adjustment.

A few drops of oil in the shifter to make sure ther springs can push bits around as they are intended to could get it working too.

So, I have a couple of worn S5 hubs, and need some parts, I have new 1st/5th sun gears, part number HSA269, but I still need sun gears for 2nd/4th, part number HSA141 and 8 new planet gears, part number HSA134, does anybody know where I might find these for sale? My hunch is the planet gears are still in ok condition, and the hubs will work much better with new sun gears, but as long as they will be apart I'd like to replace all the parts that wear...

Trying to get more info on this HUMBER. It was suggested I ask here. More pictures at the link. Thanks!
https://www.bikeforums.net/classic-v...7939-what.html
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The other one to check is that I have occasionally had the band clamp on the shifter be slightly too long, so the screw that holds it in place clamps on the shifter mechanism before the band clamp is fully tight, that compression of the shifter prevents it from working properly. Just loosen the mounting screw for the shifter a turn and see how it operates, if that is the issue a little scrap of inner tube under the band clamp will make the band clamp get tight before the screw applies any compression to the shifter itself.

Looks like I have quite a few things to try now. I’ll give them a shot. I hope it works cause it’s a cool shifter.

I would contact Mark Stonich - he is the guy who sells the beefy cotter press. https://bikesmithdesign.com/
He also sold me a couple of left side bellcranks for my S5 hubs that he adapted from shimano bellcranks. You can see them 1/2way down this page http://bikesmithdesign.com/SA/SA-tips.pdf
You could maybe try this guy? Internal Gear Hub Service

Hes a great guy! I did buy the HSA269 sun gears from him, but he doesn't have the HSA141 or the HSA134.


That website does list the parts I need! Thanks you so much!

I think it's a late 40's bike. I've got a 52 and had a 55 and they both had brass head badges, something that was in short supply post war. The bakelite dynohub also stopped around '51. It could have a date on it.
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It's amazing! I would love to have one for my Hercules!

Free Raleigh Twenty
 

Finally dragged the Raleigh Twenty back out of the garage during a dry spell to take some photos. The work van does not make the most charming backdrop, but it was about as much effort as I was willing to put into photographing this. I posted about picking this up a few weeks ago, and haven't really touched it since, aside from pulling more pine needles out of various crevices. It certainly isn't in good shape, and I think free was about the right price for it. If I end up liking it, I'd consider re-painting. There's patina, and then there's just sad.

It's got some white splotches here and there that I think might be house paint, and rust galore. Rims are surprisingly not very rusty, which is nice, though the nipples did not fare as well. Hopefully they're not seized.

I did get the pair of tires I ordered for it in the mail, nothing fancy, just some cheap CST Decades to try the whole thing out. Whenever I get around to finding tubes and getting the hub moving that is. I was also gifted a white saddle that I think might look rather nice on this, if it doesn't end up being unbearable to sit on.


I'll post progress pics whenever I actually make some progress on it.