Bicycle Mechanics - Kids 16" bike -- can you change axel to quick release?

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SoonerLater
10-10-06, 12:02 PM
Is it possible to replace a bolt-on axel with a quick release skewer?

I have three small kids and a fleet of bikes. The kids bikes all have bolt-on wheels. If they had quick release skewers, I could put at least one of them up on the roof Yak rack with the adult bikes, thereby making more room inside the van. Can you change the axel to a QR? Inexpensively?

waterrockets
10-10-06, 12:17 PM
Most of those axles are BMX, which are 9.5mm. Most QR axles are 9mm front or 10mm rear, so they won't fit the cones on the original axles.

Bummer huh? I thought about doing this coversion as well. I ended up just getting a couple metric wrenches cheap from Harbor Freight and leaving them in my car for trips in the bike racks.
TallRider
10-10-06, 12:31 PM
You can get Q/R axlesin all sorts of thread dimensions, so I'd recommend taking your kids' wheels into your LBS and seeing if you can find axles for it. Easiest way is actually to just take the locknuts in and find Q/R axles that match them. Local Bike Shops with good mechanics are great for wide selection of small parts when you need to match something that you have in your hand.

One possible worry: lots of kid's bikes have very thin dropouts, which will require you to get a very carefully-measured axle length. If the Q/R axle sticks too far beyond the outer edge of the dropout, you won't be able to shut the quick-release skewer.

TheBrick
10-11-06, 05:22 AM
Not as elegent but on some old bikes I have seen big butterfly nuts in place of q/r. You could try to get hold of some of these, I have seen them for sale before to it is worth a try.
HillRider
10-11-06, 05:32 AM
Not as elegent but on some old bikes I have seen big butterfly nuts in place of q/r. You could try to get hold of some of these, I have seen them for sale before to it is worth a try.

IIRC, a combination of wing axle nuts, a flat tire and ice-cold fingers was the reason Tulio Campagnolo invented the qr skewer.
waterrockets
10-11-06, 06:29 AM
One possible worry: lots of kid's bikes have very thin dropouts, which will require you to get a very carefully-measured axle length. If the Q/R axle sticks too far beyond the outer edge of the
dropout, you won't be able to shut the quick-release skewer.

To add to that worry, most kids' bikes also flex the frame and fork when you tighten the axle nuts. So you need to measure when the wheels are in place. If you measure the frame and fork w/out wheels, you're going to be quite a bit off.