I am not a bicycle mechanic, I just ride the darned thing.
A high speed collision shattered front wheel, bent the rear, and tweaked the fork on my 2001 schwinn panther. I'm using this as an excuse to move to suspension, (and a disk brake/internal geared hub/having a wheelset built/etc).
I bought a never mounted 2000 manitou x-vert fork for a song from someone who cut the steerer too short to use ,(doh!). The steerer is the same length as the fork it is replacing, same inside/outside diameter. It's unthreaded though, and I need about an inch and a half of 1 1/8 inch 26 tpi threads cut on it. I can't find anyone in town who will do it, getting lame excuses like "cant be done", "we don't do that", "we don't do that anymore", etc. I understand what hand-cut threads look like, I'm a former automotive technician, and can live with roughness and burrs.
Park Tools makes the threader , and specificaly states it is suitable for creating threads. I don't want to spend $200 on a tool I will use once.
I can ship the fork if anyone is interested in doing the job. Let me know if you are interested in doing the job, I'll make the job worth your time.
offline@qwest.net
BTW-has anyone ever seen first-hand a shimano nexus 7-speed that has failed? I'm looking for a poor mans speedhub.