sjanzeir

Guys, is there or has there ever been such a thing as an "oversized" axle cone locknut?

Let's say that I've got some dish-shaped damage to my steel bike's rear dropouts caused by years of not enough clamping force by the QR skewer or not having tightened the axle nuts down enough. If my 10mm rear axle's locknuts that take a 17mm wrench could be replaced with larger ones - say, ones that could take a 19mm wrench or bigger - that would grip a greater area of the dropout's surface beyond the damaged section, wouldn't that work better, even as a temporary solution until I decide to have the damage welded up and filed back down to thickness?

This is the kind of damage I'm talking about:

darkhorse75

Can you move the wheel to the rear of the dropout where there is some meat for it to grip?

sjanzeir

That's the problem - the way the rear derailleur is hung to the dropout is with its own hanger, rather than bolting into a threaded hole; the hanger is held in place by a small screw that threads into a purpose-made nut that's shaped to fit the bend at the end of the horizontal slot. The wheel axle slides into both the slot in the dropout and the coinciding (and shorter) slot in the derailleur's own hanger, which then acts like a bumpstop to locate how far the axle can slide back into the slot.












The only way I could take advantage of the undamaged parts of the dropouts is to go fg/ss, which I'm not inclined to do.

In theory, I could drill a 5mm hole into the dropout and tap it to bolt the derailleur's retaining screw into it to allow the axle to slide farther back into the slot, but there's a very good chance that this would weaken the dropout at its most critical point. So that's not really an option.

I could also take the bike to a machine shop and ask them to weld and file the damaged area back to thickness, but with all that's been going on in the world, there's a lot of logistics involved.

And then there's the question of whether or not I should invest this much time and effort into what's basically a cheap, entry-level frame that's not even my size, but it's a perfectly good bike that I'm inclined to keep in roadworthy condition, if for no other reason than its sentimental value.

dedhed

https://www.aircraftspruce.com/catal...RoCGT4QAvD_BwE

Moe Zhoost

I'd say that if the wheel is stable in the dropouts after tightening the axle nuts, don't worry about that damage too much. As a simple option, you could file the slot backwards a bit (2-4 mm) on your derailleur hanger.

sjanzeir

I might need to do that anyway at some point, since the bend has gone misshapen (you can just about make it out in that last picture) after having had so many times to hammer the dropout into shape after it opened up into a V; any overtightening would cause some locknuts I used to have on there that were tapered at the edges to cam their way through the damaged areas and split the slot open. It was too painful to look at, let alone take a picture of it.

I've done some of the work: the sharp-edged locknuts that came with the new Weldtite axle helped to stabilize the wheel, and I made sure to use quality axle nuts with integrated serrated washers.

In the mean time, I'm going to have to wait until Ramadan is over, the lockdown is fully or partially lifted and my Peugeot station wagon arrives, so I could have a chance to take the frame to a local machine shop and explain to them what I need done.