hotbike

Hello,

I am having a 3 speed wheel built. I acquired a Sturmey Archer 3 speed wheel a while back, but it had a 26 inch rim. I took the wheel to the bike pro shop today and asked the shop owner to build a 20 inch wheel with this hub.
The shop owner looked it over , put a magnet to it to determine it was steel, and then he called Raleigh, on the phone, and asked a few questions. He said the hub was built in the past few years.

I only paid $40.00 for the "bike", which was a collection of parts that included this hub. The Sturmey Archer 3 speed hub alone is worth more than forty dollars.

So I had this wheel sitting around, but the "parts didn't add up to a whole bike.

I got the idea that I could have the hub relaced with a 20 inch rim.

As for the model #, I believe it's AWC. It has a coaster brake built in, which is good, because the downhill use is a strain on the vee-brakes.

Oh, shoot, I forgot to show you all a picture of the bike it's going on.
Let me open a new window and fetch the URL...

Here it is:

and another:


My question is, do you think I'll have any problem fitting a 3 speed wheel on a BMX frame?
The frame has 14 mm dropouts and the current wheel is 3/8ths, and uses adapters, which I'll have to re-use.

Wish me luck, I hope everything goes smoothly.
I have said I would paint this bike black. But I would have to take all the lights off, so I don't know if I will...

If you have been following the progress of this project, you know I replaced the 12v12ah battery with a 12v7ah, which saves weight. I have also added 12 volt blinkers; amber on the front, and blue on the rear. The front blinkers are mounted on a slice of 1/4" aircraft plywood mounted to the botom of the battery rack/fairing mount. But these changes took place since I photographed the bike.

My main concern is ; will the axle be long enough, because the frame is aluminum (Diamondback built a 6061 BMX frame in 2000 and I bought one) and the dropouts are very thick, and have adapters?

The gear ratio (from the Sturmey Archer spec sheet):
1st gear .075
2nd gear 1.0
3rd gear 1.33
-------------------
The bike shop owner also said that his Grandson just opened an indoor skateboard park in Texas, which is cool, in more ways than one, because it's air-conditioned.

Sheldon Brown

Actually, that is NOT "good." The good Sturmey-Archer hubs don't have built in brakes. The classic AW model is one of the most reliable bicycle parts ever made.

Unfortunately, Sturmey-Archer has a very poor track record with coaster brake 3 speeds, they're notoriously unreliable. The AWC is probably the best of a bad lot though, certainly better than any of the TCW models or the S3C it replaced. Just don't rely on the coaster brake, 'cause if it fails, it is likely to fail suddenly, with no warning.

Sheldon "V Brakes Are Good!" Brown

hotbike

Thanks for that heads-up, Sheldon.

I plan to keep the vee-brakes in place and only use the coaster brake for emergency stopping.

I remember that my coaster brakes got hot on some of the hills in Sea Cliff, here on Long Island, when I was younger. There's a reason the name of the village has the word "cliff" in it.

hotbike

The Sturmey Archer 3 speed hub is now installed!

The Mechanic who laced the wheel gave me a Sun rim. I was expecting a BMX rim , but this is not. Fortunately, I bought a thorn resistant tube (2.5mm thickness) before I walked out the door, and he told me the rim was drilled for a presta. He had the other mechanic drill it out to Schraeder size.

The new rim is narrower, so I had to install new brake pads and a new cable.

I took it for a test ride and it was only shifting between 2nd and 3rd. A slight adjustment of the barrel and it is now shifting in all gears.

I am very happy with this. I had not had a 3 speed in 30 years!!! I know some of you aren't even 30 years old yet, but I remember my old three speed. My first three speed was a Shimano and this is a Sturmey Archer.

The twist-grip shifter is really cool. It has a yellow indicator behind a clear plastic lens, so I can look and see what gear I'm in.

The only problem is the plastic guard that goes over the axle/chainstay. It has a hole in it to thread the cable through, but I don't want to disconnect the cable to install it.

As for the hub brake, it works. I think it's a good addition to the bike because the vee brakes were not capable of stopping the bike on downhills.

tellyho

May I ask what you are going to use that bike for?