oneclick 

I have a wheel that has a Phil Wood hub.
The rim is a 27" Super Chamion and the hub is 100 oln, with one side threaded.
It's a steel-centred hub.
Apparently it is for a front disc brake, tandem most likely as it has 48 spokes.
The "drive-side" flange, the one with the disc, looks to be threaded onto the hub shell.
The other side flange looks to be pressed on, much as both flanges in pics of steel-centred front hubs on the net (I have not yet fond a pic of a hub that matches this one).
The flange width is 57mm and the spoke hole diameter is 48.5.
Both end caps are 13mm long.






I don't have a tandem, much less one with a front disc.
I do have a use for a really strong rear wheel.
What I'm hoping t find out is if/how it could be converted to work as a 120 or 126 rear.

52telecaster

Sure it's not a hub made for a freewheel?

scarlson 

If you are confident it's a tandem hub (by the spacing), I'm pretty sure they don't have a reverse lockring for the brake, at least not the ones I've seen. Once you use the brake a few times, the brake will be screwed on TIGHT. No need for a lockring unless you are braking going backwards on your tandem a whole lot.

Braking torque would be higher than driving torque in all cases, so I think you are fine to thread a freewheel on and use it, respaced, if that's what you want to do and if the freewheel thread is the same as brake thread (guessing it is?). I think the threaded-on drive-side flange is normal for a freewheel hub. Those are the same threads going all the way through to where the freewheel screws on.

I'm seeing a couple ways you could go about respacing.

I'm guessing you could make something out of steel that would thread in where the bolt goes, extending the axle out another xx mm on the "drive" side, and have threads in it for the fixing bolt, or a threaded stud to go through the dropout and take a nut if you prefer. You could do it with a lathe and stuff, make it all neat and threaded and whatnot. This would be fancy and robust, I would think. Also heavy. Whatever, right? It's strong.

You could make/buy an aluminum spacer and just use a really long mounting bolt. That would also work, right? I don't see why not. Have to make sure it won't slide against the end of the axle and get things crooked. But probably would work, would be reversible, and would be cheap/easy proof of concept.

You could try pressing the thing apart and making a new axle end-cap in the length you desire. I'm pretty sure these axle end-caps are pressed onto a tubular axle that goes through the bearings. You might want to make the portion inside longer so that you can use shorter length mounting bolt and still engage the thread inside the axle after you have the longer end on it.

You'd have to screw a freewheel on and see how much you would need to extend the axle in order to get enough clearance for the amount of speeds you want, and then see if that's less than the difference between 100 and 120 or 126 (+10 or +16mm). Then you'll know if you need to take off some length on the non drive side. If you do, you will have to take apart the hub, and only the third method I mentioned (full disassembly and remaking both axle end-caps) would work. If there's not enough space even for a 5sp freewheel, try a 4sp. Often you can make a 4 by taking the last cog off of a 5. That's how old Maillard freewheels work, and a few others, although you will then be limited to rather large cog sizes.

Or just send it to Phil and pay them to do it ($$$ I think especially for shipping).

Here's a good thread all about taking apart the first-gen Phil hubs. You may want to take a look at the tool the one person made out of angle iron and screws to take just the end caps off while leaving the hub assembled. Could do that if you want to be minimally invasive. Otherwise it looks like the bearings just press right through the steel hub barrel.

Doug Fattic 

Phil Wood long ago made a disc brake designed to primarily be used with tandems. This was in the late 70's or early 80's. I don't remember when exactly. Your Phil hub was designed to work with their disc brake. The composite material used as a disc proved to be unreliable so for liability reasons they stopped making them. I have a rear Phil disc and hub on an old tandem I made when those parts were available. Here are a couple of poor pictures.

stardognine

Man, you guys just keep making me learn things around here. 😁😉 I honestly thought the OP's wheel was a rear, until I read on through the rest of the thread. 🙃

curbtender

bulgie 

Yes that's a tandem hub, for a Phil Disk. Yes the thread is the same as for a freewheel. Yes you can make it into a rear with the correct end-caps, which are just pressed on.
Dunno if Phil sells the endcaps you need or whether you would have to have some custom-made. Not too hard for someone with a lathe, even a benchtop hobby lathe could make them.

The front Phil disk, in addition to being an unreliable brake, also makes an unreliable wheel in 100 mm spacing. The problem is the dish, with the flange in too narrow on the brake side. (They also made a wider one, 110 mm IIRC, which of course required a fork made in that spacing. Those wheels are strong enough.) I have seen two Phil tandem front wheels taco'd, saw one of them happen in front of my eyes, happened at walking pace as they turned off the sidewalk into the street for the very first ride on their new custom bike! Yes the wheel was properly built, by a long-time expert tandem wheel builder. In addition to the two I saw taco'd, I've heard reports of several others, I might even say it was a common problem on those 100 mm disk hubs.

It pains me to say the brakes were unreliable, because I really wanted those brakes to be good. They were such a cool design, light weight, easy to put on most any bike, no extra clamps to undo to take the wheel out. I made a good number of custom bikes for them, including a tandem for Mr. Phil Wood himself, which he insisted should not have any other brake accomodation, no canti posts, not even a hole in the crown or bridge. Not sure if that bike ever got ridden; I think it was meant to be mostly a show bike.

This flange spacing on your hub will be adequate on a rear wheel as long as you don't try for too many speeds (wide spacing on the right) combined with a narrow overall width, i.e. too much dish. Stick to 5-speed space if you make it 120, or 6-speed @ 126. Or if you want an extra-strong wheel, go for reduced dish, such as 5-speed @ 126, or 6-7 speed @ 130.

It's not terribly hard to build a 48-hole hub to a 36-hole rim, just skip hub spoke holes as necessary. The only real difficulty is you need several different spoke lengths, which you can determine by trial and error if you have a selection of spoke lengths available, like in a well-stocked bike shop. PITA for a home mechanic if you have to buy the spokes ahead of time.

Or for a more highly-dished wheel, you can use all 24 of the right-side spoke holes and only half (12) of the ones on the left. Now all the spokes on each side are the same length, i.e. you only need two lengths. That's not as good on a low-dish wheel because it can be hard to get enough tension on the right spokes, without over-tightening the left spokes. The unequal spoke numbers R vs L pretty much requires a rim where the spoke holes are not staggered to the R and L, you want all the spoke holes down the middle. Not many rims are made that way. Hi-E used to like wheels with unequal numbers of spokes on the R and L, but he made his own rims to match.

Mark B