Bicycle Mechanics - sturmey-archer help please!

hi guys- i got a sweet raleigh sports last weekend, cream-colored! she's very nice but i'm having a problem with the sa hub. low gear won't work at all, the crank just spins. second and third gear work fine. is this just a simple cable adjustment or something more serious? i'd really like to get her running properly, and i'd really like to be able to work on these myself as it's the fourth sa in my stable. if anyone can help or point me in the right direction, i'd sure appreciate it! thanks! v

hi guys- i got a sweet raleigh sports last weekend, cream-colored! she's very nice but i'm having a problem with the sa hub. low gear won't work at all, the crank just spins. second and third gear work fine. is this just a simple cable adjustment or something more serious? i'd really like to get her running properly, and i'd really like to be able to work on these myself as it's the fourth sa in my stable. if anyone can help or point me in the right direction, i'd sure appreciate it! thanks! vThe symptom you describe usually results from gummed-up pawls. The low gear uses a separate set of pawls from the other two gears, and if the pawls are stuck by dried-up lubricant, the symptom you describe often occurs.

Very often, this can be fixed by just adding light oil to the bike and riding it a few miles to let the oil slosh around and dissolve the old residue.

If that doesn't do the trick, you need to disassemble and clean the hub. This is not nearly as hard as the people who have never tried it suppose.

See: http://sheldonbrown.com/aw for detailed instructions.

Sheldon "Epicyclic" Brown

If the cable is adjusted properly and its still happening Sheldon is right, squirt some light oil in the oil port on the hub shell. I will say 99% chance that will fix it. These hubs are near indestructible!

thanks! you guys are the greatest! long live three-speeds!!

I rarely have had to disassemble an SA 3 speed after lubing it and riding it a little... I use 5-30 synthetic motor oil so things keep spinning smoothly even when it gets really cold.

I also use synthetic grease in the bb for the same reasons.

Here is the best 3-speed disassembly guide I have ever seen. You can expand the pics and copy them off to make a bench book.
http://www.karrot.org/ascotto/three_speed/repair_page1.html

WD40 works well to dissolve the gunk.
Just be sure to dribble it out later and put in fresh oil.

But before that, check the the cable is adjusted properly.

Having pulled an SA apart without the above instructions, I can say that those definitely are the best I've seen. Between that and Sheldon, you're golden.

a-ha! filled her with some light oil (3in1), adjusted the cable and i think i got her! at least i can see how the different adjustments affect her. sheldon is right (duh!) that you can't just go by sight adjustment. when i tried that, i couldn't even see the indicator rod, it was all chain! thanks! i love this bike!!

Is 3-in-1 oil vegetable or petroleum-based?

It's a petroleum distillate. You can look at the Material Safety Data Sheet here:

http://www.wd40.com/Brands/pdfs/msds-3in1_multipurpose.us.pdf

The feds have some info on it here:

http://householdproducts.nlm.nih.gov/cgi-bin/household/brands?tbl=chem&id=167

oyi. 3in 1 isn't a problem is it? it's what i had on hand at 7 this am, and in a small squirt bottle...

Totally fine. In the future, you might want something a little heavier. Hell, you could probably run a SA on canola oil for 100 years.

3 in 1 isn't a problem is it?

During the 20th century, 3-in-1 gummed up more Sturmeys than all other lubricants combined. It is a mixture of lubricants, and the vegtable based component breaks down over time. The residual gets trapped inside the hub. I wouldn't be surprised if your original problem was because of 3-in-1 was used in that hub at some point.

You haven't hurt your hub, in fact the the cleaning component (3-in-1: cleans, lubricates, rust proofs since 1894) might help, but I'd flush it out before too long.

TCS

Here is the best 3-speed disassembly guide I have ever seen. You can expand the pics and copy them off to make a bench book.
http://www.karrot.org/ascotto/three_speed/repair_page1.htmlIt is good, but note that it has you taking the sprocket off of the driver. There's no reason to do that unless you are going to replace the sprocket, just more work for nothing. Just skip over that section.

Sheldon