JohnDThompson 

The second eyelets on those dropouts were added at the factory. Looks like someone was a little careless when brazing the eyelet to the dropout.

polymorphself 

Nice perspective. You're not thinking the dropout itself looks bent in? I've not been able to measure yet.

SJX426 

The very first picture answers your question. Definitely not in alignment with the other eyelet.
To Bulgies point near the beginning, The design is not only about the DO but also about the seat stay clearance.

The example is a Colnago from 1983 that came with a 6 speed freewheel.
P9201291 on Flickr

Switching to a 7 speed was simply changing the freewheel.
PA121374 on Flickr


Block height can make a difference too as not all freewheels have the same outside dimensions from large to small sprocket.

WRT bent axles, IMHO it is a small consideration for 7 speeds. The real risk is with 8 speed freewheels. Yes I have replaced a bent axle, but I don't recal if it was a 5 or 6 speed freewheel.

Using a different hub like the Mavic 500 series can reduce the risk. They are very sweet hubs to boot!
P9151226 on Flickr

JohnDThompson 

You can't really tell from the picture. For a few bucks, you can make yourself a dropout alignment tool:
https://www.bikeforums.net/classic-v...ment-tool.html

Johno59

There is no reason any bolt holding a tiny weight ie a fender, is protruding into the rear sprocket domain. Screw a bolt and pack/cut the bolt end in so it's flush with the frame. Having the bolt head on the chain side is not factory standard for obvious reasons - the main one is you can't access/tighten it with the rear wheel on! If the eyelet is not threaded or stripped go up the next size and re-tap the thread. It takes five minutes.

Road Fan

Before going out to a framebuilder I'd take the fenders off the bike and verify what the geometry is at that location, and how much clearance exists. I've had this problem a few times and the most severe involved making the friend's bike symmetrical with the OLD at 124 mm for a vintage French-threaded hub with a 5sp. All that clearance should not have been necessary, but we had no option to refashion the ends of the rear triangles, and it was a very cheap very low-end frame - we just needed to make the bike work and go in a straight line. The owner promised "I'll be very careful and only ride like a little old lady!"

Road Fan

I would consider the excess length of the fender screws to be removable. Cut them as needed to achieve practical clearance that allows the wheel to be installed and sit parallel with the frame center plane. As short as necessary, but not shorter.

Road Fan

It should shift very well! Can you share the tooth counts on your freewheel, and for your chainset? I'd like to calculate a "proper" HS+G for you, which you can try at your leisure. I really like those patterns once I get it all proportioned right and the wheel dish and chainline in agreement.

Road Fan

I wouldn't go quite that far, though I don't have any stones to throw at the '83 720 or the '82, of which I own an example. My view of '80s bikes is that the manufacturer's were trying to offer as much gearing capability as possible in each frame configuration. So I've found at least for the Treks I've owned in the 6xx range (600, 610, 620) that while the 610 for example came with a Helicomatic 6sp, when it broke and I got a different wheel (Record rear hub) I could fit narrow 7-speeds in with hubs set up for 126 mm spacing. I didn't find a problem with a 600, 610 or 620, or with my Mondonico which was 126 or my Woodrup. I haven't tested the limits on the 720 yet, essentially it is not yet all put together. But i't be really surprised if on a Trek you are having trouble with a narrow-7 fitting.

One of my peeves with the Treks is that they used seat tubes which are steeper than I like, and so far I don't like the fork offsets - the 610 should IMHO have more fork offset.

So not necessarily perfect designs IMHO. However, I like them. If I like my 720 after some road time, I'll probably keep it and release my other herd members back into the wild.

Jeff Neese

The 720 should not be confused with any of the other bikes you're lumping it in with. It was designed from the ground up as a loaded touring bike. For that intended purpose, it's perfectly designed. Build yours up as a 3x6 (as it came from the factory) load it up with front and rear panniers and 80lbs of gear, and ride it for 10k-20k miles. Then you'll also agree it's perfectly designed for its intended purpose.

bulgie 

Correct, the old French "standard" (not very standardized but common) was 124 for 5-speed, and that extra space was needed for the dumb (IMHO) domed stays with no relief on the inside for chain clearance. Lots of English-made frames were just as bad, even ones with "Professional" in the name like Raleigh and Holdsworth.

The better Italian frames had proper relief there, going way back in time. Not sure when that started, but I've seen them with stays trimmed or flattened on the inner side of the right dropout back to the late '50s, probably earlier but I don't have a lot of experience with such old bikes. By the time Campy was making their own hubs, they were 120 mm wide for 5-speed (later bumped up to 121). I think the earlier Campy hubs made by FB were probably the same. This resulted in a wheel with less dish, and less leverage to bend the axle, but it required the frame to have clearance.

You could always add spacers to a Campy hub, but that was frowned on by racers for the above reasons, but more importantly, so you could get a neutral-support wheel and the gears would line up. So there was a strong incentive to standardize on the Campy 120 mm OLD, 30 mm freewheel space.

Then when hubs like Phil, Hi-E, Weyless and Bullseye came out with their vastly superior large-diameter axles, you almost completely lost the ability to add a spacer. Technically possible to respace those, but much more difficult.

Regular riders who don't race and will never get a neutral-support wheel can feel free to ignore the Campy standard, or use a 6-speed wheel with a 5-sp freewheel, getting all the disadvantages of the 6-sp wheel without the one advantage, that 6th ratio.

I don't know what French racers did, when they were forced by nationalistic French sponsors to use French frames and hubs. I guess most just ignored the Campy standard and accepted the downsides of a longer axle, but I know some secretly used Campy hubs (and frames!) and hoped the fans wouldn't notice. But in the USA where I did all my racing, wheels were expected to be spaced Campy-style, so you just had to have a frame with proper clearance. If you had one of the dumb French or English frames with the "unmolested" Reynolds domed stay end intruding into where the chain needed to be in high, you just wouldn't be able to shift into high where the chain would jam against the seatstay dome. Since your bike was adjusted for a wheel with extra space, your derailer limit screw wouldn't allow it to shift into high, but it would let you shift into the spokes! So it was up to the rider to be careful when shifting into low, if riding on a borrowed wheel. It's bad form to borrow a neutral-support wheel and then give it back with a bunch of spokes ripped out.

So that's why I have filed or ground away the offending part of the seatstay on so many French and English racing bikes. It's all Campy's fault! (plus the laws of physics)

Mark B

Road Fan

Thanks for the extra perspective, Mark!

Regarding derailleur adjustment, I was able to set the derailleur limits so my friend could ride safely. I didn't try heavy filing or grinding, since I was afraid to breach the steel or weaken anything - the level of material and especially workmanship on this bike was well below racing grade. But while he has been pedaling all his life, he never leaned a lot about bike mechanics. Asking him "don't shift into High" would not have helped anything, I just had to make the bike work well so he could ride the way he did since 1974 when he bought the bike. So we were lucky to have on hand a mech which could do full range, but I don't recall what it was. It did not have to be high-end, light, pedigreed, well-labelled, shiny, clean, or pretty - it just had to bolt on, enable proper adjustment, and work. I put on some small roller wheels cadged from another old derailleur, for which the bolts fit. Friend is very happily pedaling around!

Road Fan

I'm not just lumping it in with them, I'm comparing it to them. If I leave it an 126 mm rear OLD and install a narrow 7-speed, what risks do you see? I have seen standard-speed 7sp not fitting Trek frames, but not narrow 7-spd. If I can easily make this adaptation on a range of other Trek road bikes and not on the '82 720, why shouldn't I consider that a flaw with the 720 design? And giving respect to Trek's engineers, I wonder what was the benefit that made that design feature necessary, relative to the contemporaneous 6xx models? In other words, what were they trying to accomplish, since they were clearly capable engineers trying to accomplish something useful and desireable? These bikes are extremely similar: main tubes, frame main triangle dimensions, frame clearances (for the '82 720, you folks have been saying the later ones had a lot more wheel clearance). Granted it has the fuel bottle mounts under the DT (not that this matters to me), and I think I might not be able to go wider than 28 mm or 30 mm actual width in the tires.

Johno59

Eh....put a bikini fender on it that is attached by the same bolt as the rear brake caliper and give it all the berries. You have a low end Shimano groupset on a Made in Taiwan by slaves bike. It's not a Colnago Super Record Mexico! (Colnago don't know what a damn fender is!) Get a grip.

Road Fan

Lol!

Hobbiano 

Have you tried a narrow 7 speed freewheel on your 720?
I have an '82 '83 720 with a standard 6 speed and there's enough space left over that I think a narrow 7 speed work. A narrow seven speed is not much wider than a standard 6 speed. I don't think the OP tried a narrow 7 speed and the issue he was having was the fender bolt being too long and hitting the chain.

abdon 

I don't even know why we are still talking about this. All it would take is two minutes with a file to get that bolt to the right size for the job at hand. It is not rocket surgery.

polymorphself 

Well now we’re not even sure the dropouts are aligned

The new 6sp freewheel arrives Saturday so I’ll be mounting that. I’ll also be cutting the screw, although I imagine clearance won’t be an issue with the 6sp on there, but I may as well for good measure.

Then I’ll tackle the potentially bent dropout. There’s a local frame builder near me who I’ve had sort out such things for me in the past and it’s always nice to check out his shop.

madpogue 

IKR? Who knew Waterloo was in Taiwan?......

spclark 

^^^^^ this! ^^^^^

Road Fan

I think your response is directed to Polymorph rather than me, but no problem with that. For my 720, I have not finished with the drivetrain setup and I won't for at least a few more weeks, but on my other Treks I have put on narrow-7s with no problem. I have used a variety of chains, all on the narrow side, none with any interference issues. All the 7's had narrow enough sprockets to accept what we used to call 9-speed, and since I've cobbled together chains of adequate length from other used chains hanging on the Old Chain Nail in my basement.

Road Fan

Since I have a pair of H-tools, I find it is nearly always appropriate to recheck the rear dropout alignment. Sometimes I see an installation going in a bad direction, and I think "Ken, you ignoramus, you didn't make sure the D/Os were right!" And doing that usually improves things.

Hobbiano 

No, it was for you.
I guess I was confused about your statements a few post back:
Going back and reading your previous post it sounds like you don't see a problem fitting a narrow 7 speed to an '82 (or '83) 720. So I still don't understand the statements in the second quote above. What flaw were you to referring to? (not that it has none) And what design feature are you referring to? Anyway, I followed what you were saying in the previous post to that one but I must have missed something.
Correction: My 720 is an '83 not an '82 as I previously indicated in my post.

Chr0m0ly 

I seem to remember these drop outs came with one eyelet and a second was brazed on during the build up. That could account for a slightly inboard eyelet without damage.

somewhere on this forum is a 720 stripped before a repaint, and you can see the brazing.

if I’m remembering….

Road Fan

In my second quote I was trying to be hypothetical, sorry about the confusion!. Maybe the following is clearer (at least it's less wordy!).narrow- If the 720 is perfect, and it cannot work with a narrow-7 sp freewheel, why is it wrong to try to use such a fw on a 720? And why is it better for a perfect 720 not to accept a narrow-7 freewheel when other "lesser" Treks will accept them?