Velocivixen

@desconhesido-Fantastic. Thanks! It wouldn't have to be that particular brand. Any brand would be fine - with a vintage look. Just curious. At this point I will use my Niterider MiNewt headlight.

arex

Yes...as I understand it (and I might be remembering this wrong), it's a burnt orange metallic under a translucent dark green. It was the closest match we could find to the original paint, though it was the barest shade lighter than original.

desconhecido 

The dynohub from the 74 Sprite works fine with the light that I have on the 79 Sports. This is the light that I bought:

B + M Lumotec IQ Cyo Premium T senso plus front headlamp (black)


I think it's a fine looking light and I think it looks fine on the Sports, but it's not "period" correct for either my 79 or your 55 Philips. But, it makes a lot of light -- about as much as any "street legal" modern alternator powered LED light. It also has a low speed short distance light and a stand light. Retro looking LED lights are available from other makers. Also, very small and inconspicuous and, inmo, nice looking lights like the Supernova E3. But that's about three times as expensive as the B&M that I bought. About the same as the hub, spokes, rim, and light.
Of course, it works better with the Shimano generator hub, but with the dynohub, the short distance lights come on with a pretty slow rotation. A slow rotation which I'm guessing may be 3 to 4 mph lights the lamp with a noticeable flicker. A quick rotation lights it up steady. Flicker could be reduced/eliminated by the application of a rectifier, as discussed earlier.

Been working on the 51 Ladies Sports among a number of other things. Concentrating on cleaning and mechanical issues. Had it on the road for a test yesterday. Put a pair of those Panaracer tires that everybody else in the universe likes -- I'll just say, I don't like them. They're not round and they are labeled as 300,000 pa (N/m**2) or about 45psi max (45 psi!). We'll see what happens with 70 to 80.

Got the front brake working and hooked up for the test and it's pretty sloppy. There is a lot of slack, it doesn't center properly, and it moves a lot when applied. Up and down rotational movement centered somewhere along the through bolt axis. Most of the movement is because of the sloppy fit of the parts. I'm not sure if there is supposed to be some fiber bearing washers in there or not, but among the two 50s Sports, there are four brakes, and none of them has any bearing bushings or washers separating the brake arms or taking up the slack in the "stack." I would like to keep the old steel brakes for the looks, but functionality is what is most important for this bike. I am working on it so that it will be ridden and not by me, so I want it to be functional and safe. I'm not too worried about the steel rims when wet, because it will probably never get wet. I may try the steel brakes from the 74 Sprite or the Weinmanns from the 79 Sprite and see how they work. Then, replace those with the Tecktro 559 long reach brakes. Those wouldn't be too bad on either the 79 or 74, but both the 74 Sprite and 51 Sports need an upside down pull rear brake. The Steel "Bull" brakes on the Sprite and the alloy Weinmanns will do that, but I doubt if the Tektro 559s will. What the heck, it's only money.

We don't normally name our bikes, but when working on the front wheel, I noticed something on the bottom of the down tube.



For some reason, we've started calling this bike the Black Widow.

rhm

backstory
I used to commute on a folding bike with 16" wheels, with a dynamo hub in the front wheel. The smaller wheel put out almost double the rated voltage, which literally melted several LEDs off their leads. So I got into the habit of soldering together my own lights.

the learning curve
I messed with halogen bulbs and various pre-made LED lights (such as tail light units made for car trailers). I messed with capacitors and bridge rectifiers and...

eventually
I realized I didn't need any of that stuff. The LED lights on my current folding bike have been in place since I soldered them together in August 2010, and are still going strong 8500 miles later.

And I got to converting old Lucas and Miller headlights to LED as well.

I'm now doing the wiring like this:


I wire one of the electrical terminals on the hub directly to the hub axle. From the other terminal, I run a wire to the positive terminal on a white LED for the headlight, and a wire to the negative terminal on a red LED for the taillight. I wire the other terminals on the LEDs directly to the light housing. The result is that the current from the dynohub goes alternately to the headlight and to the taillight. It's awesomely simple.

Now, anyone who knows anything about electronics will say "but only a caveman would do it that way!"

Okay, guilty as charged.

Does it flash? Yep. But only at low speeds. When I get up to speed, it evens out nicely.

Does the flashing drive me crazy? Well, I suppose that would explain a lot.

noglider 

If she lost her husband, it's entirely fitting.

@Velocivixen, if you think you'll truly need a proper headlight while riding the 3-speed, I would advise doing as @desconhecido did and using a modern headlight. It's good to know that the old dynohub is up to the task of powering a modern light. Modern lights are spec'd to require a 3w hub, but it's not surprising that they work OK with whatever the old SA hub puts out, nominally 1.8w (I think).

noglider 

@rhm's lighting system is brilliant but takes a lot of work. I've really enjoyed installing B&M and Philips headlights. On some bikes, I have used antique dynamos (bottle or under-BB) and on some, I've used Sanyo hubs.

rhm

Well, there is that.

Alternately you can just replace the bulbs in your existing Sturmey Archer lamps with these:


https://www.superbrightleds.com/more...fiURoCGGjw_wcB

But note, it requires DC current, so you still have to wire it more or less according to my wiring diagram. One lamp has to be center positive, the other center negative; otherwise reverse voltage will destroy the LEDs.

Salubrious

^^ the reverse voltage should not do it any harm. When 'reverse biased' it simply won't conduct.

Velocivixen

@desconhecido- Thank you for testing that out for me. Maybe down the line if I'm riding this bike a lot, I will spring for a modern Dynamo headlight. For now I will clamp on my battery operated one. Your copper Raleigh (Sprite?) is gorgeous. That is my second favorite color for old Raleighs.

You folks are all pretty electronics savvy. A good skill set to have for sure, and with your inventive and creative minds I can see how you come up with some nice solutions.

Salubrious

I've been thinking that one of these could be adapted to a British machine. It looks the part but is likely brighter, and its cheap; at least it might do until the original is sorted out:

Retro Bicycle Bike Accessory Front Light Bracket Vintage 3LED Headlight Lovely | eBay

sloar 

I'm using standard screw in 6v flashlight bulbs. They work but are very dim, should I use something else or are these lights just not made to be very bright?

arex

+1

desconhecido 

It's a Sports. I've heard the color called root beer brown. It was a very common color back in the 70s. Must have been an economic reason for Raleigh to use so much of it.

Here's the bike shortly after I purchased and rehabbed it back in 2010, probably May. Since then I've installed the cork grips, which I like a lot, an aluminum rack which is not period appropriate, and recently the dynohub and B&M light. The rims and tires in the background are the ones that were on it when I bought the bike for $30. That's an expensive $30 bike. At the time, Colorado Cyclist was about as reasonable as anybody for spokes and I bought the 14 gauge DT spokes from them for $.50 each including the nipples. Got more in spokes than in the bike. You no doubt understand just how expensive a "cheap" bike can be.

wahoonc

Yes

My Raleigh Twenty has modern LED lights on it. I use a B&M Lumotec Classic on the front. It is a smaller than the original but still looks okay. For the rear I went with a fender mount B&M Four D-Lite No special wiring, just had to watch which way I wired it up so they would work. The B&M lights use a two wire system. I can get pics later.

It spools up just fine and provides plenty of light for riding. FWIW my Raleigh Twenty has an AG hub on it, like your Phillips.

Aaron

Velocivixen

@wahoonc - great to know. If you've got some time I would like to see your setup. My current lens is both plastic and has some degraded area on the inner surface. I hesitate to try to buff it out, as I don't want to make it worse. Also as either you or @Salubrious suggested my chrome piece around the lens does have a dent - not an indentation produced at the factory, like I first thought. This causes the lens to not fit tightly.

As an aside, I found the SA exploded diagram with parts #'s for my rear "rocket ship" tail light. It works fine, but nice to see what's involved.

arex

Just pinstriped the lugs on my frame. I can now see why some people don't recommend paint pens...started out good, but the tip went mooshy quicker than I expected. I don't think I was abusing it, either. Next time, I'll use a brush.

Number_6

Well, I thought it was a 1977 from reading somewhere that Raleigh only made the 27" 3-speed Sprite variant for 1977. But looking at catalogs, I saw that the "Coffee" 3-speed was only offered in 1978, and I doubt this is a "Carmine" color. Until I get it apart and can easily check the s/n, I'll go with '78. This one was from a Raleigh twofer deal back before Thanksgiving. When I got it the PO had removed the crank and back wheel, fortunately saving all the parts except some of the axle washers from the SA hub. It also has no rack- otherwise it's all there. It looks like will clean up nicer than it looks- the garage rash was found to be negligible and the "rust" so far has come off with bit of spit on the finger. In the next week or two, I'll start disassembling and clean up the chrome. I'll take the frame down south to my sister's for a good wash and wax and see how it cleans up. The black headtube with the coffee lugs is a really nice detail. While the decals are in fine shape, I'd like to know what the sticker on the seat tube might have been. in the catalogs I saw one on the upper tube, but not sure about the bottom. Whatever they were, they weren't decals- looks like time has left glue residue.

desconhecido 

The SN is the way to tell. Probably it's on the seat tube and easily visible, It is on our 74 Sprite step through.

It looks to me like your bike has the steel brake calipers and the "self adjusting" levers. I think that by 77, they were using Weinmann alloy calipers and had abandoned the self adjusters (which are, as far as I know, universally disliked). That would suggest to me that it's likely 73 through 75, but one thing we Raleigh lovers know is that there's no telling.

About those levers -- other levers, imo, are better, but they work ok and are still on our bike. I offered to replace them with something else but the offer was declined.

nlerner

Rather than factory decals on the bottom of the seat tube, that's often where I've seen decals from the dealer's shop.

Here's the '78 catalog page for the Sprite:

michaelz28

thats where my 74 sports dealer sticker is . look at the metal flake in the original "coffee " paint .

arex

michaelz28

is that your 74 sports ?

michaelz28

this is more the color .. in macro mode the camera and flash makes it look sunset ..suprising with their tea thing and all , calling it coffee

Number_6

Well the s/n starts out NC7XXXXXXX- so it is a Nottingham- Feb, 1977. Too early for a '78 model I guess? Possibly midway thought the '77 model year production, it was decided to introduce coffee as a color for 3-speeds, since it was offered on the 10-speeds? (Note that the 5-speeds were dropped for 1977...) Maybe the brake parts were leftovers? Was what I read about the 3-speeds made only in '77 pertain to the calendar, rather than model, year? FWIW, it's got a cream, rather than black, front reflector housing.

Maybe it's like this because its a Raleigh?

I would suppose the top sticker on the seat tube would have to with frame material? I see something on the top of the seat tube in the catalog pictures, but nothing on the bottom of said tube.

One thing that's interesting is the tall Record-based frame- seems unique for an English 3-speed.

arex

Yes...I'm finding that the powdercoat doesn't photograph very well. It really does look nicer than that.