These axle adjusters are installed backwards. Or have I been wrong all these years? I only doubt myself because I know this bike to be totally unmolested since original assembly.

Right. It is wrong. At least based on how I have seen it on every bike ever that had them. Mine are the other way which is concrete proof that these are wrong.

The screws will perform their function, to position the axle until it can be secured, either way. One advantage of the way they are currently installed is that they will not loosen and fall out. Since they rarely/never require adjustment I prefer to lock them in position with a nut from the outside then trim them flush to avoid them getting bent and difficult to remove. The bike will be perfectly fine without them, they are merely a convenience when installing the wheel.

It's not necessarily wrong. Those screws might have had a knurled cap nut on the outside end to turn them by hand, the nuts probably became loose and fell off.

+1 this. The knurled caps are easily lost.

That's is not wrong, the problem is that the tips are missing, as in the picture reynolds posted.

You have missing pieces thats all.

As someone who's had them since 1967 they are correct as is. Back then some of us trimmed off the part extending behind the dropout so it wouldn't bent when bikes were tossed around. That allowed us to adjust from the inside, and leave them there, while preventing the jammed & broken screws that bending caused, along with stripped dropouts.

BTW- why did you think is was wrong?

It may be hard to tell from the pic, but they are machine screws that are threaded through a spring and into/through the interior of the drop out. The slotted head of the screw would ride against the axle. I think they are installed backwards....

edit...I reread your post FB and your explanation makes sense. I think I'll turn them around though.......

And then you'll mush up the end of the screw and threads with the axle and not be able to get it to unthread should you wish to remove them later.

Better to go to a good hardware store and buy acorn nuts (3mm?) preferably stainless and screw them on the end with some loctite to serve as "knobs"

You really don't want to do that. You want to leave it so they remove toward the slot rather than to the back. If the screw becomes damaged, it's easy to move it backward, clean up or saw off the damaged area then remove the screw. If you turn it around you'll have to do the surgery inside the slot, and if it should get sheared off the stud will be hard to remove.

The little end caps are probably still available, and will allow easy adjustment if that's your concern.

thanks.....

Dont understand why the OP insist that they were installed backwards, you have the two knuckled tips gone. You can do what you want to do anyways because i have seen it and it will work. The problem is that you risk to damage the threads of axle a little bit. Not the same to have like a head 3 mm in diameter that is flat than have a sharp 1 mm diameter thing in its place.

You can get new parts in the web, those things are still available.

No, they are not.
Thanks for reminding me to re-set them on my FG road bike w/ the fresh cog/chain.

-Bandera

Say...did anyone say they are correctly positioned yet?

Oh...right.

Well lookee here!!!! I read all the posts and decided that I would follow my instincts and install the screws with the heads out. Then last night I started to work on an '86 Raleigh Competition. Lo and behold the adjusters are installed exactly as FB described.

I bow to wisdom and experiance............

Of course that bike could be backward, and any one or two of could be wrong.

But when you have an overwhelming consensus (or any consensus here on BF), odds favor it being right.

+1 on FB's opinion. I rebuilt a Bianchi not too long ago. Had a small stash of campy chain adjuster screws and the outer heads are separate and can fall off easily. I had some others from Suntour/SR or something with the same design but a chromed coloured spring. The campy ones were black. So they are inserted correctly in the original pic and just missing the finger adjuster nuts. I don't have a cost on those parts since everything I have in stock is likely more than 5 years old.

Well that maybe correct...but I will admit that I have never see a bike this way nor the way the OP shows it. In memory of thousands of bikes, they are the otherway... just a finger knob on the outside and just a little bump or something on the inside to retain the spring. Google Images search for "dropout axle adjustment screws" provides so many variations, it made my head hurt.

Good reason to evolve to vertical dropouts for derailleur bikes, in my humble opinion. I really dislike horizontal dropouts.

/K

Really? Even catalogs from the 60s show the knurled nut on the outside, with the bolt head on the inside:

The finger knob on the outside is the separate knurled nut that the OPs bike is missing. And the little bump retaining the spring on the inside is the head of the screw. If you clean off the dirt you'll even see the slot. So it's not that you're seeing anything different, or that your memory is failing, it's just that you never looked very closely.

They in the end are not important, because the mid race need for fast wheel changes
and having the adjustment pre set so the wheel is centered as the team mechanic
replaces your punctured race wheel , is gone.

Well, doesn't the convenience of being able to reliably replace the wheel correctly centered without fussing count for something. One mans need for speed is anothers need for ease.

I think what fietsbob meant is that since modern race bikes exclusively use vertical dropouts, there's no need for these adjusters anymore. Curiously, some early semi-vertical dropouts retained these adjusters for some reason:

Have a long slot campag set of dropouts on a DIY bike frame I built in '75 , the adjuster seized
and would not budge to screw in or out .
so I just broke off the screw on both sides of the back of the dropout ,

and proceeded to ride the bike un hampered. ever since..

vertical dropouts are almost compulsory with indexed shifters , now,

so the wheel goes back in the same spot relative to the RD guide pulley with consistency..

Friction shift derail, or IGH it matters less ..


I have the semi verti-zontal dropouts on my steel 91 Pinarello CX frame,
I thought them odd .

Old Gt Karakoram had vertical rear dropouts with adjusting screws (here w/o the screw):