Originally Posted by hueyhoolihan

i have had some experience with what you intend to do. the bike had 130mm width in back. the hub was a shimano Nexus 7 with an internal coaster brake. this is what i did:

rebuilt the rear wheel with new shorter spokes and the Nexus hub. shorted the chain and got lucky with the gearing (used a half-link on the chain) that i wanted and the chain tension, so no chain tensioner was necessary (real lucky). i think i may have bought an alternate rear cog and put a spacer in there to adjust the chain line. the BB was a shimano un-72 and the crank was a shimano 600 road crank. i connected the shifter to the stem and ran just about a foot of housing to the stop on the downtube. then bare cable to the cable stop on the driveside chainstay. it worked great. no objections but the weight. when i picked up the bike it felt like it does when you pick up a baby with a full diaper (heavy in the rear ). good luck.