utmurray

First off let me say I have been lurking here for a long time and enjoy looking at everyones beautiful bikes

I have a Peugeot UE8, and have narrowed down the year to 1981 or +/- 1 year.

I bought this bike when I was in college, and I bought it off the original owner. It was absolutely mint, and a joy to ride everyday. Had fully functioning generator lights, fenders and a luggage rack that I used quite often.

I came back to my dormitory one day and my bike was gone! I was informed by my roomate that his buddy borrowed it to go on a beer run. Well needless to say, in walks the guy with my bike in shambles. He crashed it and it was never the same. I have since removed all the fenders and lights as they were all broken or bent.

It has been some time now since then, and its time that I tune the bike up. I want to modernize it a bit or at least make it more efficient to ride around town. It has never felt the same, mechanically, since the accident, and feels a bit sluggish even. I love this bike so i would like to get it back to being a joy to ride. I was thinking of changing it to a single speed or fixed gear, as I would use it every day to cruise to work and around town, no rides longer than 5 miles or so, and no hills here in S. Florida. I have researched this extensively, and even have come across a few forum threads about doing the exact thing with an older Peugeot. The year of my bicycle tells me that the threading is most likely Swedish, which doesnt sound like the easiest to work with. And at a certain point in the threads I found about reworking these bikes to SS of fixed, I was completely lost, with no idea about what was being discussed. I am pretty clear about what would have to be done about the rear wheel (get a new one!), but the whole BB business and swedish threading, I am completely lost as to whats going on. So, here is my thought...

I do not know a bunch about servicing bikes. I know there are resources like Sheldon Browns website, and I have learned alot there and on the fourm. But, i simply have never worked extensively on bikes. The conversion seems like its a bit over my head especially since its an older french made bike. Should I just keep the simplex system and try and update other parts of the bike? I really like the simplicity and cleanliness of the SS/fixed though. I feel like a conversion would bring the bike back to life. I am pretty mechanically inclined, so maybe this is something I could tackle if I knew what I needed to buy/had the support of the forum? Thanks for hearing me out, and I appreciate anyones input on where I should go with my beloved bike and breath some new life into her! I recognize the importance of keeping vintage bikes "vintage", but she is far from original condition so I feel like im not ruining a classic if I convert her. If it had never been crashed and was still in that condition I would never dream of changing a thing ....but thats life. Thanks guys!

David Newton

Swedish threading?
What?

:andrew

+1
I learned that 81 is when Peugeot started using Swiss threading on some bikes. Also, if your bike was wrecked so bad by your roommate that it smashed all the lights and destroyed the fenders, I would make sure that the frame and fork are not bent before I put money into it. Especially since you are saying it has never felt the same.

utmurray

Sorry I meant swiss.. Rookie mistake.

Yeah the frame is fine, I should have specified. The rear hub has a bit of a wobble to it so that's what makes me want to do the conversion.

David Newton

Dhoh! Swiss threads, sorry, I didn't make the connection.
Pretty bike.
Hang around, lots of help here, and good spares too, so bring lots of short questions.

Velognome 

Ever consider the S3X hub? Not as smooth as a SS fixed but the 3 gears are really nice to have.

utmurray

David, thank you. I'm excited to start learning about bicycles, what I have, and what I can do with it. Without the forum it would be much harder, a lot of good people with lots of knowledge here.

Velognome, is the s3x conversion easier? I would be completely open to doing this.

relyt

I converted a UO-8 to an S3X hub and it was a piece of cake. The only difference between an S3X setup and a normal fixed-gear setup is that you need to route a shifter cable down to the hub.

utmurray

relyt, I will keep that in mind. Thanks for your input, what year is your uo-8??

And as I feel comfortable tackling this project I see threads like this https://www.bikeforums.net/showthread...me-repair-jobs... and it scares me away from working on my bike!!

If anyone, including you relyt , would be willing to be a reference for me if i decide to move forward with this project I would really appreciate it!!!

I want to keep this beautiful bike in great condition and enjoy it for many years to come.

relyt

I think mine is a 1975 model but I'm not sure. The bottom bracket is French threaded. I replaced it with a Velo Orange cartridge bottom bracket because the old cups were a bit worn out. For the stem, I used a threaded to threadless adapter which I sanded down with emory paper. The difference between French stems and normal stems is only 0.2mm and it is safe and fast to sand one down. That took care of any French sizing issues. If you need a new headset, Velo Orange sells those too.

The bike didn't have any cable stops on the downtube so I ran the shifter cable inside of the housing almost all the way to the hub. I ended the housing at the stop behind the bottom bracket. It shifts fine, there doesn't seem to be excessive friction from the housing.

Chombi

You guys are lucky you haven't dealt with Urkrainian reverse coarse threading yet!......Commonly found in Russian WW2 large caliber field altillery breach block assemblies.....They used it so the Germans and Hungarians could not salvage and use their abandoned equipment. They even topped their fasteners with weird, half domed, triangular bolt heads so that they will need the proprietary tools to even work on them.........................














Now let me tell you about the great big ole snipes that I hunted in the northern Wisconsin birch forests as a young lad...........

Chombi

randyjawa 

Hi utmurray. You are in luck. I publish a website, MY "TEN SPEEDS" just for people like you and me. I have an article on the UE8, and the UO8 and many other French bicycles. There is also How To Do It information available. You can even get some ideas about Single Speed conversion, if you are interested.

Visit MY "TEN SPEEDS" and wander around, if you wish. I do hope it will be a help.