Ballenxj

Thanks for the answers Chaser5 and Boattail71. Are there a lot of these still around?

dweenk 

If you need any more Shimano parts, let me know. I have a small box of various parts that I have not bothered to catalog. I think all of them are for 333 hubs. Free for mailing cost.

Chaser95

I can't say. I live in a rural area and all 3 speeds are scarce. However, two Western Flyers popped up on here in a short time. Seems to me like all the bikes are in Canada and New England. I am learning that Raleigh made bikes for many companies and why not? That factory was huge! Hey Boattail71........is that a Buick?

Ballenxj

edit, you may be right. https://www.buick-riviera.com/

boattail71

Open? I appreciate the "open?" frame. This baby boomer calls them "women's" or "ladies" bikes. Millennials call them "step-through," for some reason but I digress. These classics are cherished by (some) co-eds in my college town so I aspire to resurrect derelict 3-speeds, especially the "women's" bikes, and get them back on the road for less than the cost of a new bike. We all win.

BigChief 

I'm glad to hear that, although in my experience I have trouble giving away old English ladies 3 speeds. For some reason that I don't understand this particular nitch of C&V cycling is almost totally dominated by grown men. I hope your experience is a new trend and more women will come into the fold. It's a fun hobby and the old bikes are still practical and certainly better looking than most modern bikes. Most of the time, I use the term stepthrough because it makes more sense to modern cyclists, but the old fashioned ladies and gents is nice in a vintage context.

paulb_in_bkln

I'm chastened. I also wish I could legally emancipate all the forsaken ones locked to parking signs here and send them on to you for rehabilitation. What's college for, anyway?

BigChief 

Well, at least they are good for parts to rescue the more wanted gents 3 speeds. Something I've wondered about but don't know is whether one of the ladies size forks will work on a gents 23" frame. Everything but the frame is usable and ends up being about a tenth of the price of buying the parts separately.

nlerner

When I've had to source fenders and chainguards for men's 3-speed builds, I've ended up buying a couple of lady's 3-speeds to harvest those parts and then re-selling at low prices with non-original fitments. Similar to @BigChief's experience, in this market, there are usually lots of lady's 3-speeds available at low prices.

desconhecido 

We've got a couple step throughs -- ladies, if you prefer. Also have a Raleigh Grand Prix step through from about 1971. Haven't measured the steerer on either the ladies Sports or Superbe, but I did measure the steerer on the Gran Prix and found it to be real close to 2" longer than the steerer on a 21" "Gents" Sports. I think that the fork from a 21" step through would probably be pretty close to the same as a 23" "Gents."

Salubrious

I took my GF on the Lake Pepin 3-speed Tour last year.

After that she bought a 3-speed on her own- a 1972 'step through' Superbe. The finish was in very good condition as was the chrome; I took it home and redid all the bearings while she watched (she actually wanted to see how it was done; I don't have a reason to think she was humoring me...). I found a key for the fork, now we have matching 1972 Superbes in green. She has troubles with getting over the top tube of regular frames so the step through has been a real boon.

Bring on a friend on the Lake Pepin 3-speed tour... comin' up in 6 weeks!

BigChief 

@Salubrious That's great. There's no reason that riding old English bikes should be a (guy) hobby. I'm sure we would get more women involved if they knew it about it.

browngw 

Thanks for the offer but I think I'm good for now. I have only one bike with a Shimano 3speed and its is missing parts (front wheel) and is well down on the list of projects.


It would be nice to have a registry of all these parts out there (like 87 pawl springs!) that we could share. I have other SA parts I know I will never use but hate to toss them in the scrap steel bin.

paulb_in_bkln

I just finished rebuilding the hub. I should have inspected the axle under better light; it was indeed the nut, not the axle, that stripped. But everything inside was quite crusty (AW hub, 1972), so not a bad thing to do. And I've always wanted to take one of these apart.

Like many others, at the very end of the 60s I caught the 10-speed bug and ignored three speeds for many years. I'm sorry about that, now. I also think about the few grownups I'd see on three speeds then and how some of them had modified the bikes slightly for a sportier look. First things: flip over the handlebars and change to rat trap pedals. Also lose the chainguard and fenders, or switch to plastic fenders. I'm not sure if aluminum wheels were available in the stock size then. And I don't think anyone did a cotterless crank conversion. CCs were expensive.

boattail71

I've long wondered where the term "step through" came from. My guess is that it helps a flipper sell them to a wider market. That is, a younger man might not ride a bike termed "womens/ladies" but might ride a "step-through." In fact I've run across college guys who look at my women's bikes and have no clue that they were originally marketed to girls.

boattail71

Put a basket up front and a cute co-ed looks great on a cute English girl's bike. Makes 'em even cuter... the bike that is of course

JohnDThompson 

Looks like some SW parts in there; bit of a niche market, eh?

But a good number of axle keys. Can never have too many of them. One nice thing about the two-piece indicators used on some non-AW hubs: they don't strip axle keys, and even if they did, you don't have to open the hub to fix it.

johnnyspaghetti

I xanII have taken enough of these apart and note how the washers are placed not knowing weather they have been mixed up along the way.
The washer with the bent tabs Have mostly been it where it should be. Seen both

The other is with the heavy grip teeth & dropout guide from I would say 50's - 60"s have come off the outside.I look a t
drop out to see if they stuck the teeth marks in the dropout axle

I would say the heavy tooth washer is far better at staking the axle in at a fixed point. Nice old school grip washer. Fits in the dropout grove.

You still need to find the sweet spot for the adjustment for the outside cones then crank downaxle nuts.
Some say 1/8 turn loose then tighten, but the slop in the axle/nut threads is variable. Could be more , could be less than 1/8 turn.
There are always the smooth thick spacer washers I think are placed to align sprocket more than anything else.

I see 2 of these washers on one side or the other. The sprocket, which is cupped, can also be flipped and has always had 2 spacers as well 1 in 1 out. 2 in 0 out. sometimes 2 on the inside.
The hub sprockets are cupped in and some are cupped out.
The variable is in the frame you are working with. Get out the thin cone wrenches. My friend could edit better I don't lie.

johnnyspaghetti

Yes/no

BigChief 

I like doing the final wheel bearing adjustment after the wheels are mounted on the bike. For the rear wheel I use 2 of those little SA cone spanners on the non drive side. One for the cone, one for the lock nut. I pull/push the rim side to side and leave a small amount of play. For the front wheel, I slowly tighten until I don't feel any play at the rim.

paulb_in_bkln

Same here.

gster

I concur.

paulb_in_bkln

Not to get philosophical (obviously that's what I'm about to do), I scratch my head now the way we (meaning me and the few bikies I knew) abandoned the three-speeds way back then, as the 60s closed and the 70s began. All I wanted, dreamed of, finishing up high school, was a UO8. Which shows I suppose the shallowness of my bike knowledge then as I had yet to be introduced to the PX-10, which in any case would have been way above my pay grade; basically I had no pay grade. Now I wonder what was I thinking? The UO8's frame material was similar to the Raleigh Sports; so was the geometry. Chromed steel wheels. Cottered cranks. Steel handlebars. Steel hub shells. Steel seatpost. All the same as the Sports. The UO8 did have an aluminum stem. (Which could break.) The UO8 came with "alpine" gearing--good for then, high considering what bikes come with today--a climbing advantage over the stock Sports. But this would have been rectified easily by switching to a 20 or 22 tooth cog. How often did I pedal in the 52/14 top combination on the UO8? Almost never. Not to mention giving up the reliable AW hub for that plastic Simplex derailleur that one quickly learned was terrible. Being young and flexible then I liked the drop handlebars but that would have been another easy switch on a Sports. The bike shop in my neighborhood focused on the slightly less expensive Dunelt line, but, same difference. All in all, I think it was susceptibility to bike shop sales pitches and herd mentality. Another embarrassment of youth, basically.

markk900

Yeah, I was the same way...but every so often I would go for a ride on my mother’s Raleigh made Glider and have a blast- too bad it was too small.

I will add to your herd mentality that the bike magazines of the time were focused primarily on drop bar racers, with few articles on 3-speeds. I am still looking for an article on Bicycling! that I recall being an IGH done up with cotterless cranks and alloy rims which I remember being intrigued by but like you no pay band meant it was just interesting.....

For many of us the only source of information was the occasional book on cycling at the library (Sloan was my hero), Bicycling! or International Cycle Sport.....not a lot of utility or non-derailleur coverage. I wish I had heard of a Lenton Sports back then.

johnnyspaghetti

This one looks like new. What brand does this hub look like? Frame?

https://minneapolis.craigslist.org/r...545215189.html