Originally Posted by
ggroth9
Pardon if this has been asked before, but googling brings up nothing but SS conversions.
Way back when, many moons ago, I had the opportunity to attend the Schwinn Authorized Mechanics school (dealers were required to have at least one factory trained mechanic at every store).
One of the things that was taught to us, but has been lost to me, was a method of locking an AW3 hub into a specific gear. This was not cross threading a spoke into the axle key, and bending it over. The instructor did something specific to lock the hub into 1st and 2nd gear. I believe one method was to flip the clutch over to stick the hub into 2nd gear? Can someone verify this, and / or know the other method of locking the hub?
Yeah, I remember that trick, too, from Schwinn School. I think you have the trick correct: flip over the clutch (HSA117) and it stays in 2nd gear. No bent over spokes needed.
I hope you've looked over Sheldon's Sturmey-Archer pages:
http://sheldonbrown.com/sturmey-archer/aw.html
FWIW: I went to Schwinn School in 1980 in City of Industry, California. Jim Parrott was the instructor and one of my classmates was Richard Cunningham, later of Mantis Moutain Bikes and Mountain Bike Action magazine.