europa

I'm in the process of buying an S3X hub. It's to go in my Europa which is an 80s roadie - hence a steel frame with 130mm spacing.
I want a silver hub, coz I like silver hubs and the front wheel has a silver hub.
Maybe you can imagine my chagrin when my supplier (an honest chappie who knows his job), emails me to say the silver is only available with 120 OLD. I can get the 130 in black though.

I'm not going to change my supplier and before people get rude about him, I should point out that Sturmey Archer have had all sorts of options such as 32 hole drilling that come and mysteriously disappear. I reckon the buggers at SA take a long lunch on a Friday afternoon, stagger back to the office just before knockoff time and THEN decide what they're going to make next week.

Anyways, I've got a choice, the hub with 130 OLD which matches the spacing of my frame but which comes in the black which I don't want OR, the hub in silver which I do want but with 120 OLD.

Does anyone know the difference between these hubs? Is it any more complicated than a longer axle and some spacers?

Could I use the 120 hub in my 130 frame simply by adding some spacers? Does adding a 5mm spacer reduce the amount of thread available for the axle nut too much? And what about the shifter chain?

Is it smart or stupid to use the 120 hub without spacers? ie, just pull the rear dropouts in. I currently spring the dropouts apart to take a modern 136 hub. That's a 6mm stretch but is the 10mm squeeze a bit too much.

I could, of course, get the frame cold set to 120mm but that's a little too permanent at this stage of the conversion ... I think.

Then there's lunacy such as buying the longer axle and installing it.

Is anyone familiar enough with these hubs to offer some guidance, or familiar with making steel frames do weird stuff?

Velognome 

Yup, spacers work fine. 81 Raleigh Comp GS with s3x built about 2 years ago as a daily rider

europa

Thanks mate
Your bike looks a treat.
I see you've gone with the bar end shifter. I'm debating whether to do that or see if I can convert it to a downtube shifter on the grounds that I wouldn't be changing gears very often. Any thoughts?

Mumonkan

i have the barend on mine now and its good, i like it better than the thumby i had on the risers

sturmey archer says themselves that you can take the shifter out of the barend and use it on a dt shifter mount

TampaRaleigh

You can actually use the spacers to your advantage. I did this on an S2C hub: I put 7mm of spacers on the NDS and 3mm on the DS and that eliminated the dish on the rear wheel.

rex615

Since I have nothing useful to add, I am just going to say that this made me laugh.

Velognome 

This is the way to go if your going to use a downtube shifter. The shifter has 3 detents, these are important to hit to stay locked in a gear.

I shift a lot, a lot more than I'd imagine. I think the gears can make you lazy, not physically, but mentally. I don't seem to pay as much attention to the terrian knowing I've got 2 lower gears to bail myself out if needed.

Mumonkan

^ a la mconlonx

Velognome 

^ Very cool build!

bikemig 

What can I say, this thread makes me want to build up a road bike as a three speed with drop bars. I must have clubman envy!

Mumonkan

i stole his wheels for my bike

jason_h

A SA hub with a 163mm axle will work up to 126mm OLD, you will just need to add more spacers on the inside of the dropouts. For a 130mm OLD, if your dropouts are too thick, you might not have enough axle on the outside of the dropouts. If this is the case, you should still have a few threads on the outside, such that you could tighten down the nuts thereby reducing the OLD the necessary amount. The problem with this is that it just makes wheel removal a bit more difficult. The 175mm axle will work up to 135mm OLD without problems. The 163mm and 175mm axle do use different indicator chains. I have a SA 3-speed coaster hub that came with a 163mm axle, and I was able to find a 175mm axle and switch them out. It wasn't too difficult to switch out the axles if you follow the tech manual off their website for disassembly. It was messy though, those hubs are packed with grease. As for availability, everything is made in Taiwan now, and I don't think the US is SA's largest market. As such, allotments of parts to the US can be sporadic.

owlofminerva

Hi! Reviving a somewhat old thread to ask for clarification about how you guys went about respacing your S3Xs... I have a 120 that I am fitting to a 126 frame. So 2.5 or 3 mm spacers on each side? Is outside of the locknut okay? (For that matter, is inside the locknut even possible on the drive side?) Or everything on the non-drive side and re-dish? (I already built the wheel before I thought of this. Whoops!)

This guy just flipped the anti-slip washers that come with the hub to the inside of the dropouts, and stuck a couple of hardware store washers on the outside:

https://overthebarsinmilwaukee.wordpr...ed-fixed-gear/

Is there any downside to that?

Any advice appreciated...

JohnDThompson 

I put the spacers under the locknuts on mine. The only downside I can see putting them outside instead, or putting the anti-rotation washers inside the dropouts to act as spacers is that mounting the wheel might be a little more fiddly. Go for it!

europa

Seeing I'm the OP, I guess I should answer. Unfortunately for the new question, I changed my plans and put my S3X into a frame with 120 OLD and so I didn't need spacers.

As for the choice of the S3X, marvelous piece of kit. If you've got decent hills on your ride, you'll love it. As unexpected benefit, even on the flat, is being able to gear down for a head wind.

jason_h

I wouldn't bother pulling off the lock nuts and putting spacers under them, but I suppose it could be done. My 3-speed hub that is something like 116mm over the lock nuts required two spacers on either side for my 130m spaced frame. I use two HMW-494 lock washers on either side of the dropout to improve gripping on the dropout, plus one additional HMW-483 spacer on either side inside dropouts. Yeah, there is a little bit of fiddling to make sure the dropout goes through the proper washers when putting the wheel back on, but its still easier than trying to remount a wheel with a rear derailleur.

As for washers, I have never had much luck finding the proper diameter for SA axles in hardware stores. The SA made washers are really not all that expensive all things considered, if you can find them. In the US, the best place to find them is https://www.biketoolsetc.com/. Their website is a pain to navigate, but if you search for the SA part number, the search will find it if they have it. They are the only SA distributor in the US that does retail, the other two only sell to dealers.

As for finding the part numbers of the washers you need, that can be a bit tricky, as SA makes a lot of different types. Their catalog on their website will list most of them though. Google image search can also help out. They make lock washers for dropouts that either have a 7.9mm (old Raleight std) or 9.5mm (current std) slot width. If you have standard 9.5mm slotted dropouts, and you get the 7.9mm lock washers, they will rotate a bit when torqueing down the axle nuts, but they will still work okay, unless they are the thin stamp metal ones. Those will bend into the dropout out slot over time making it more difficult to pull the wheel. I prefer the milled/cast lock washers over the stamped version. The ones I use on my bike are these: https://harriscyclery.net/product/stu...hmw494-861.htm

I wouldn't consider re-dishing the wheel unless it is necessary to get it properly centered in the seat/chain stays when using even spacers on either side of the hub. More spacers on one side of the hub could make chain line wonky. A dished cog usually will get you to around a chain line of 44mm (SA specs on their website will tell you want it actually will be for different models), which is close enough for a front crank with a standard chain line of 42-43mm. If you want to make it perfect, get a BB that allows you to adjust chain line on the crank.

Mumonkan

provided your frame is made of steel, you dont really even need spacers, just tighten it down