Restoring a Peugeot uo-8 and I removed the 5 speed freewheel from the Normandy hub. Amazingly a 7 speed Shimano megarange freewheel screwed on perfectly.
However it is wider than the old freewheel and extends past the locknut on the drive side. There isn't enough axle to respace the locknuts. The hub has 122mm spacing.
Will a Velo Orange 126mm have a long enough axle to use the Shimano hub?
I took photos but can't post them yet.

a 7-speed FW (NOT what I'd be prescribing but it's your business, and I'm not a Doctor!) might well screw onto the hub, you're lucky that Pug was using one with ISO threads that day, but you'll need to
1. add a longer axle + spacers. my guess is for a QR hub you may need one at least 6 mm longer, but then you also
2. need to re-dish the rear wheel
3. spread the rear triangle (see Sheldon Brown's wiki for that using a long 2x4 and so on), my guess is that will have to go to 130mm spacing for a 7-speed FW, but check on that first!
4. back to the axle: tricky thing there is if you want to re-use the cones and locknuts, maybe SOME of the Normandy spacers/washers, you want to get a replacement axle with same threading as the French, which might NOT be what VO sells, measure twice, buy once!

The good news is a U0-8 is pretty soft gaspipe that should be fairly easy to spread, I was shocked at how pliable a U0-8 fork was back when I had a bent job that I decided to straighten!

Here's a link:
https://www.sheldonbrown.com/frame-spacing.html

and note in the text he says that:
"Typical quick-release axles are 11 or 12 mm longer than the spacing of the hub locknuts. This gives 5.5-6 mm of axle protrusion on each side. You don't actually need nearly this much, so for respacing hubs to wider spacing, if you're not adding more than, say, 5-6 mm of spacers, you don't need a new axle. As long as you have 2 or 3 mm sticking out on each side, that's plenty." also that most "Road Bikes" with 7-speed hubs use 126mm OLN, but if it's a Mtn bike that goes to 130mm.
and Sheldon was not a Doctor, either, so take his advice as certainly more reliable than mine, but YMMV

for my money and time I'd skip the 7-speed FW and get a 6-speed Shimano (their twist-tooth FWs are very reliable IMO) then you might only have to re- dish the rear wheel (not rocket science as far as wheel building goes) and with the tubing (pipe) that the Pug has you may be able to keep that axle with a slightly larger spacer or two and jam the now 126 OLN rear hub into the rear triangle with no permanent spreading required...maybe...

On a UO-8 I use the 6 speed MegaRange Shimano with Quick Releases.

amazon

I also use friction washers to keep the sewers from slipping on the dropout.

amazon

And, on many Peu U series dropouts I weld on a derailleur hanger. Further more note that the Mega Range 34T cog is notorious for trapping your chain against the spokes when a chain drops. This damages the spoke heads and should be avoided. Using a Dork Disk can prevent this in most cases. Further, further note, that 34T cog likes a long cage derailleur...

Sliding a 126 OLD rear wheel into a UO 8 is easy peasy.

My general rules of thumb for increasing gear count on Normandy hubs is that by adding perhaps just a 1mm washer to each of the cone/nut stacks, a standard 6s freewheel fits comfortably if any modern (i.e. narrow) chain is used.
I try for having 3-5mm of locknut extending beyond the outer face of the smallest cog (the variability here is because of how the derailer claw mount nut may protrude from the inner face of the frame dropout).
After test-installing my wheel and freewheel, I often re-shape the nut with a fast-spinning Dremel stone in order to achieve clearance to the freewheel body's lockring, well worth the effort over having to add yet more axle extension to the hub's spacing.

So 122mm should easily accommodate a standard 6s freewheel without compromising wheel strength and without significantly extending the axle's drive-side overhang.

A 7s freewheel is similarly an easy setup, but needing about 124mm hub spacing to avoid excessive wheel dish.
The original 5s axle thus may or may not need replacing with a longer axle.

The axle should protrude about 4mm farther from the drive side locknut than from the non-driveside locknut if a derailer mounting claw is needed, so that the quick-release skewer's springs will push the QR heads out equally away from their seating surfaces on the dropout (and the 4mm-thick derailer claw hanger on the right side).

Any re-dishing that I do is concurrent with my effort to achieve uniform same-side spoke tension, which I verify by plucking spokes while holding a finger against any touching/crossing spoke to prevent it's also ringing.
Hopefully all spoke nipples can be treated with penetrant a day in advance so as to get them turning smoothly without damaging spokes or nipples!

Great post dddd

I'm getting the 126mm velo orange freewheel hub, which should have a long enough axle.