Convert five speed Schwinn Suburban to internal hub
 

Hi Folks. My wife has a Schwinn Suburban 5 sp. Wants to convert to an internal hub (5-8 gears). Is this doable, can a anyone do it and is there a cheap way of making it happen. This would be my first major bike job. Thanks for all. Will cross post to vintage.

Should not be too difficult if the bike is steel as the rear dropouts can be widened as necessary for the new hub. If the frame is aluminum this cannot be done. Different hubs have different widths from about 120mm to 135mm.

Any good LBS can build an IGH wheel or you can get the parts and learn to do it yourself. Harris Cyclery does a lot of IGH wheels per their web site and have some ready built wheels.

I'm curious: do internal hubs typically require different spoke lengths than normal rear hubs? Is their diameter larger or not?

I would think that the case would be no...that they are the same diameter as normal rear hubs.

I ask this b/c I'm seriously contemplating picking up a mercier tt track bike from bikesdirect and installing an internal hub, using the existing wheel assembly.

I would say that chance of that working out is... about zero.

yeah, except for the fact that it does work, and people have even posted pictures of track frames with internally geared hubs on this very forum.

The poster wants to reuse the spokes.

I imagine it could be done if new spokes were purchased, the rear dropouts were re-spaced, and clamp on cable stops were added.

As others have said- the chances are nearly zero that you will be able to reuse the spokes. Internal gear hubs tend to have much larger flanges than fixed or freewheel hubs and thus use shorter spokes. There's a very slight chance that it could work with a different number of crosses... for instance, switching to an internal gear hub and changing from 3X to 4X spokes. The spoke length could work out.

Old Sturmey-Archer 3-speed hubs are close to the same diameter as high-flange hubs- it could work in this case. However, if the existing wheels are 32-spoke it's a no-go. If they're 36-spoke, then this just might work.