Originally Posted by enduro
Is there anything technically wrong with just bending the stays to accomodate a differend width wheel? The steel frame should be resilient enough, might crack the paint a little but it should work. It's a ghetto solution but it wouldn't bother me if I got a solid bike for cheap.
You can do this with two major caveats:
1) The bike MUST be steel.
2) You SHOULD ensure that the frame alignment stays straight.
Because of #2 above, I'd suggest having your LBS do it.