Originally Posted by yomtvraps
So i'm putting together a bike so that my girly can ride with me. I had some 27inchers just lying around that I thought I'd use for her. Anyways, when I tighten the quick release as tight as possible it's still loose in the dropouts. What do I need to do to make them work?
tia
-ryan
A very common problem - particularly on rear wheels - is that the amount of axle protruding past the hub locknuts is too much. If that amount is equal to, or exceeds, the thickness of the dropouts, you will never get the QR tight enough. Just as you state. Take the QR skewer out and place the wheel in the dropouts. If either end of the axle is protruding past the outside surface of the dropout, or even flush with it, it needs to be trimmed down. The axle end should be at least 1mm short of being flush with the outside of the dropout, or the QR will not work properly.
It's possible that the wheels you had laying around were used on a bike that had thicker dropouts and worked just fine on that bike. You need to check that the axles are not now too long.
The classic symptom of this problem is that you think you have the rear wheel in tight and, as soon as you put pressure on the drive side pedal, it pulls forward, right out of the dropout on the drive side.