Bicycle Mechanics - How critical is dropout width?

OK, here is another of Rainman's "Where does he even come up with this stuff?" specials.

I have a Giant Cypress which I have converted into a kinda sorta road/touring bike with mostly 105 components. I had a rear wheel custom built on an XT hub and Mavic T519 rim. Now I am assuming that the Cypress has 135mm wide dropouts since it was originally set up for mountain bike type gearing and the shop recommended the XT hub for the new wheel. At the time, I was not aware of such things as dropout width so I did not question their suggestion and I figured the XT hub might be tougher. I have been looking at getting a second rear wheel as a spare. I was just going to get a prebuilt one with 105 hub and T519 rim. At about $105 from Performance, it would be WAY less than what I paid for the handbuilt one. Having replaced several broken spokes and trued the wheel, I feel comfortable with getting a ready made one with good components and tweaking it myself.

Now here's the deal. The 105 hub is typical road frame width, 130 mm. Assuming my dropouts are 135 mm (if someone would tell me exactly how to measure, I will do so. Inside to Inside, Center to Center, Outside to Outside?), can I use the 105 hub and just squeeze the dropouts in the 5 mm? If that is not a good idea, would it be a problem to stick a couple of washers on? Are there special washers/spacers made for this use? Prebuilt wheels on XT hubs all seem to be on 26 inch rims or I would just go with XT. And these prebuilt wheels using the same exact components - XT or 105 hub, T519 rim, DT spokes - cost WAY less than the one I had built. I will not do that again unless I absolutely have to.

Any suggestions?
Regards,
Raymond

Originally posted by RainmanP
Now here's the deal. The 105 hub is typical road frame width, 130 mm. Assuming my dropouts are 135 mm (if someone would tell me exactly how to measure, I will do so. Inside to Inside, Center to Center, Outside to Outside?), can I use the 105 hub and just squeeze the dropouts in the 5 mm? If that is not a good idea, would it be a problem to stick a couple of washers on? Are there special washers/spacers made for this use?

Measure inside to inside on the dropouts. W/ only 5mm to pick up, you could probably get away w/ some spacers, but you won't have as much axle in the dropout. You could just get another axle of the proper length (and some spacers) and replace the current axle. Should cost $10-15 if you install it yourself. Check www.sheldonbrown.com/harris It covers some of this, and you may find a prebuilt wheel w/ the size axle you are looking for as he seems to carry some more off-beat combinations.

Spacers work well. I built the back wheel for a fixed gear out of a five-speed hub. I had to tweak it considerably to get a good chainline, all done with spacers and thin nuts.

I had a Campy Mirage hub built for 135 dropouts. You need a spacer on the left hand side, and a different degree of dishing. You end up with less dish than a 135, so the wheel is a lot stronger.
Its better to start out from a 135 spec than try and re-dish a 130 to 135 OLN.
Over Lock Nut distance is measured on the hub from the outside faces of the cone locking nuts, and should correspond to the inner face of the dropouts (+- a few mm)

Trying to put the smaller width hub onto your wider frame will probably answer your question.

Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. I tried it recently and found that the small sprocket hit the rear stay, ending my hopes to use that particular wheel on that particular bike.

The biggest problem is probably the head-ache of the wheel not fitting correctly when you need to do some kind of roadside repair like fixing a flat. When you are home with all your tools, maybe even the wife to hold the wheel while you knuckle bust and curse, everything is so-so O.K.

When you are alone on the side of the road with ants crawling up your shorts and the asphalt cooking your shins, you will be swearing in languages you never heard of before.

whats the frame made of?

i recently built an old, ancient MTB frame(old mariushi) into a commuter from my box of spare parts. the frame was meant to take a 6sp hub, all i had was a 7sp wheel to put on there(which is 4mm wider than the 6sp one). but since its a cromo frame, stretching it out that extra 4mm was no problem.....its just harder to take the wheel off and put it back on now. i would assume bringing the chainstays in 5mm would be fine too, unless its an alu frame...then forget it.

but if you wnat to ensure ease of opration, with a smaller hub id just swap out the axle and use spacers.