Bike Forums - View Single Post - For the love of English 3 speeds...

07-10-19, 07:03 PM

#20887

gster

Senior Member

Join Date: Apr 2012

Location: Toronto

Posts: 2,572

Bikes: 1971 Hercules, 1978 Raleigh Superbe, 1978 Raleigh Tourist, 1964 Glider 3 Speed, 1967 Raleigh Sprite 5 Speed, 1968 Hercules AMF 3 Speed, 1972 Raleigh Superbe, 1976 Raleigh Superbe, 1957 Flying Pigeon, 1967 Dunelt 3 Speed

Mentioned: 57 Post(s)

Tagged: 0 Thread(s)

Quoted: 1028 Post(s)

Likes: 82

Liked 443 Times in 288 Posts

Quote:

Originally Posted by PeterLYoung

I have been restoring in the USA a 1957 Phillips Model P2 Sports step through on and off this last 9 months or so. It was in apparent good condition when I obtained it but when I stripped it I found the toggle in the 3 Speed was missing or broken inside the hub. It has the notorious Sturmey Archer SW in which the pawls act by cam action with no springs to return them. When I went back to UK in February I managed to obtain two of these hubs which seem to appear rarely on eBay (from my experience). One was in apparent excellent condition and the other poor but useful to raid for parts. So I brought these back to USA a couple of weeks back and since have dismantled the wheels to have them rebuilt with the original cleaned up front hub and the better of the two SW hubs. The rims buffed up really nice and so I expect to receive a nice pair of wheels later this week to build back into the bike.

The rest of the bike has been treated as follows:-

Frame; The paintwork was pretty good but dulled with age so I compounded much of it taking care around transfers/decals (which were very fragile) and then once cleaned up I have clear lacquered it. Same for Fenders and Chain Guard.

Components; I soaked all chromed items in White Vinegar for around 48 hours to de rust and then cleaned them up and all the parts came up very good, the chrome overall was in very good shape considering the bikes age.

Bottom Bracket, Headset, Pedals and Front Hub; Stripped, cleaned and rebuilt these replacing all the ball bearings. The bearing surfaces on these old bikes survive amazingly well.

Brake Cables; The brake cables on this bike were stuck in the outers which needed replacing. The cables are thicker than modern and the nipples are larger than modern. The brake levers do not take the modern size but I wanted to keep the levers as they are very nice. I took the cables back to the UK in the hope I might find some correct ones there but no success with this approach. I decided to have a more determined attempt at removing the old cables from the outers so I kept soaking them with WD 40 and Gasoline and eventually I managed to pull them out. I then found the old outers were the same size as modern outers though the thicker cables are a very close fit inside so I rebuilt the cables with modern outers. The amazing thing was that the cables never frayed at the ends so no problem re feeding them into the outers as they are in such good condition once cleaned up.

Will post more pics when re-assembled with rebuilt wheels and Fenders etc refitted.

Some photos below:-