I picked up a 1983 Schwinn LeTour Luxe a while back. Determined that I liked it enough to keep it and put some effort into. All the components seemed to be good enough to work with. This is a bike built in Greenville, MS, so it has an interesting mix of parts in contrast to the National/Panasonic built LeTours.

I rebuilt the wheels with stainless spokes. Rebuilding the wheels also allowed me to clean up the hubs and rims. It has Schwinn Approved Normandy hubs. These, in my opinion have always been good hubs. And it had a Atom Compact 77 ultra 6 speed freewheel. In re-assembling the wheel, I left out the pie plate spoke protector.

After putting the freewheel back on, I was shocked to see how much space I had between the spokes and the largest cog. I removed the freewheel to be sure it was seated correctly, It was. Then I put a Shimano 5 speed freewheel on. Same spacing. I measured it at 14mm.




There seems to be too much space between the spoke flange and the surface that the freewheel block will seat on. The spacing is so big that when I set up the derailleur, I overshot the big cog and dropped the chain into the gap between the freewheel and the spokes. No problem, it didn't jam. I shifted it back and the chain popped right back out of the gap back on to the freewheel. That's a great safety, but not one that I wanted.

So, were these hubs made for that much clearance or is something here wrong?

By the way, there is no spacer on the hub. What you see there is a machined ring on the drive side.

If needed I will remove the freewheel and get a picture of the hub with the freewheel threading. It looks similar to the larger flange Schwinn/Normandy hub on VeloBase, shown below.