karldub

In my first cold setting experiment with the goal of increasing the drop out spacing from 124 to 130 mm, I accidentally increased the spacing too much, ending up at about 131 mm. I did the operation in the simplest way possible, not using a "professional" but a homemade rear dropout alignment tool so the dropout angles are not 100% perfect, they might even be a bit inwards pointing due to balancing them out to get the wheel to center.

Now, a few times I've had issues with rear wheel not staying in the rear dropouts when accelerating/pedaling hard. If I clamp on the quick release as hard as I possibly can, it seems to stays in, but to reach that point I almost need to use a crescent wrench to even lock the quick release.

Do you have any recommendations on how to solve this issue? A few alternatives which I can think of are...
1) Try to decrease the rear spacing by cold setting "back" them inwards
2) Try to change the angle of rear dropouts a bit more outwards, making it harder for the wheel to "slide out"
3) Other...?

rccardr 

Get the rear dropouts correctly aligned.
Make sure the skewer nut has sharp teeth on the dropout facing side, cut new ones if necessary.
If dropouts are chrome plated, consider roughing them up a little where the skewer nut contacts on the right.

Iride01 

Quick release or nutted axte?

If a quick release, I tend to want to think maybe you have the wrong size axle and it's protruding past the dropouts interfering with the proper clamping of the QR.

Or your QR just isn't adjusted correctly or it's worn out or one of the QR's that weren't good even when new.

Otherwise 1 mm more should not be a problem, unless maybe you failed to increase the OLD of the hub from it's original 124 or whatever it was.

Did you perhaps bend the dropouts so they aren't anywhere near being parallel to each other. More so than what just bending the stays the 6 mm more apart would do?

andrewclaus

I've heard the older closed cam skewers have better leverage than the open-cam type. Switching to an older skewer helped me with the exact same problem. And I used real shop tools for my dropout alignment.

dedhed

As mentioned make sure the axle can't protrude beyond the face of dropouts when QR closed.

dabac

Not only the older closed cam. All closed cams (I’ve had apart) has had a better leverage than the open cam.
Reason being that the lever length is pretty much the same, while the radius of the actual cam is about half for a closed cam compared to an open cam.

79pmooney

I'm assuming this bike has horizontal dropouts. I gather you probably have a different quick release to achieve the longer needed length. This QR should have 1) a steel skewer (any other metal has considerably more stretch and may not get sufficient clamping force and 2) and internal cam and asymmetric lever (far better clamping force than the QRs with the symmetrical lever.

I'll second the poster above re: axle length. Make sure neither end protrudes past the dropout. If the QR nut or lever end body hits the axle, it is no longer clamping on the dropout.

Oil or grease the inside of the QR lever assembly. A lever of post 1980s will have better can design, do better on clamping force and be less likely to open accidentally. Any cheap, all steel Shimano QR of correct length in decent shape will work as well as any lever made. I've done well by the (probably even cheaper) QBP levers. Any shop anywhere should have very little problem getting either.3

JohnDThompson 

As @rccardr suggests, make sure the dropouts are aligned after spreading. Also check that the rear stays are centered with the frame centerline (i.e. "string test"). Is the axle long enough that a spacer could be installed to take up the extra space?

70sSanO

Been there done that on my first cold set.

Dropouts are flared out and not 90 degrees to the axle.

My weapon of choice was a square and a big crescent wrench to bend the dropouts straight.

John

philbob57

If the OLD is 130 mm, shouldn't the DO width be 131 mm? For 5-speed 120 mm OLD, the standard DO width was 121 mm. For 6-speed 125 mm OLD hubs the DO width was 126 mm....

mpetry912 

a mm or two on the spacing won't make much difference, however if the DOs are not aligned then (either) the end pieces and QR will not be in firm contact with the drop out, resulting in the behavior you describe OR, the clamping pressure of the QR will bend the DO under load and over time will lead to a crack at the end of the drive side seat stay.