BigChief 

Couldn't help myself. I bought another project bike. This time a 69 Raleigh Sprite with the S/A s5 hub.
Turns out that I really like the closer ratio 3 speeds it has when the left side shifter cable is slacked.
1st isn't as low, 2nd is the same and 3rd isn't as tall as the regular AW. I like the bike and I like the hub.
The problem is that the shifters are really, really bad. Positively in the "what were they thinking" category.
So, I'll be converting the right side shifter to the standard trigger and pulley system. If anyone has any advise
for me, I'd love to hear it. I have no experience with this hub or the conversion to trigger shift. The left side bell crank,
I'm not worried about. Might not even bother running a cable to it.
Thanks

rhm

The guy you want to talk to is Mark Stonich of Minneapolis (BikeSmith Designs or something like that, use Google). But if you have a complete working setup maybe you don't need to. What you want to do is put a standard 3 sp trigger wherever you want it (handlebar I assume) and use a friction shifter for the left side. You can use almost anything for that. I used a suntour bar end shifter on the end of the right side of the handlebar. A down tube shifter also works. Or another trigger.

The left side shifter works best if you put a tension spring into the cable somewhere. This keeps pressure on the cable and helps keep the hub in the gear you want. Mark can help with this.

This hub is great fun.

BigChief 

Good, I was hoping that the indicator positions on a standard 3 speed trigger would be spaced properly for this hub. I suppose I should get the left side bell crank operational, but that would mean more cables to clutter things up and I don't see myself using the lowest or highest gears very much. Still, it does say " 5 Speed" on the downtube. Maybe a single sided derailleur lever on the downtube. That might be the cleanest way. There is a tension spring built into the cable adjuster. It has very little travel and wouldn't be effective unless the cable was very carefully adjusted. That might be an other area for improvement.

rhm

That little spring is all you need. Its effect is subtle. I don't actually have a bike set up with one of these hubs at the moment, but commuted on one until about a year ago. Anyway, I really used all five gears on that, just normal riding, no hills.

A single down tube shifter should be fine. You could even put it at the top of the seat tube with a straight cable run right to the hub.

John E

I would be inclined to use a left side friction downtube shift lever, perhaps even a Simplex with the one-sided clamp Peugeot used on the AO-8 and UO-8, coupled with a right side S-A trigger, perhaps tucked under the brake lever. I did the opposite when I had a 4-speed Cyclo cluster on a wide ratio S-A hub, with the 3-speed trigger under the left brake lever and a right side friction downtube lever for the derailleur. Very nice setup for double shifts, not that you are likely to need as many as I did with my setup.

nlerner

I have my Lenton Sports with its FW hub modified to work as a 5-speed, using parts from Mark. I'm running a standard trigger shifter on the bars, and a friction shifter on the down tube (an old Simplex model, which somehow looks the part).

Ed.

On my Moulton I just use two triggers, the left side is upside down, of course, but it works just fine. One piece of advice, don't leave the left side under tension for long periods of time, there's a little spring inside which eventually doesn't 'spring' so well. DAMHIKT. It's even worse on the Mouton as there's cable housing nearly the whole length of the cable.

dedhed

Kinda pricey.

Sturmey Archer Twinshift Twin Shift Shifter Vintage for Bikes Bicycles Complete | eBay

BigChief 

Thank you all for your help. I especially needed to understand the purpose of that
tension spring in the left side cable adjuster. By using a downtube lever and frame mounted
pulley, I won't need any cable casing at all to activate the bell crank. It should work smoothly.
Standard 3 position trigger and pully system for the right. Looks like a plan.
Normally, I wouldn't remove original features from a vintage bike, but in this case I've had time
to work with the right side shifter and I have long time experience with S/A hubs.It's my considered
opinion that these shifters need to be replaced. It's not me that's at fault here. It's the late 1960s design team
at S/A. They muffed this one. This will be a fun ride once the shifting system is sorted. I like the hub.
Again, thanks for your help. This is a good board. Glad I found it.

BigChief 

I'm happy to report that the 3 position trigger works perfectly on the right side of my s5 hub. The trigger is by far the best system for 3 speed SA hubs IMHO and is for the right side of the S5 as well. I tried a downtube friction shifter for the left side, but the upright riding position made it awkward for me to use. Right now, I have the bell crank wired up to the fulcrum clip with a small expansion spring to add a slight pressure and hold the left side indicator pin in place. I'm very happy with just the close ratio gearing. It solves every complaint I ever had with the AW. I prefer this to a geared down AW. It's not fair to compare the smoothness of my older AW hubs to the S5 yet. They are recently serviced and have new chains. I haven't done a thing to the Sprite yet except to experiment with the shifters. Right now, it doesn't have the silky smooth feel of my 55 rudge and I can't say if it ever will. I'm not sure if a trigger will work on the left side. There's not a lot of spring pressure in the left indicator to work with. My latest brainstorm is to custom build a quadrant style shifter for the top tube. In any case, the Sprite looks much nicer with the auto style stick shifters gone. Somehow, they looked too undignified for a Raleigh Sports to my eyes.

nlerner

That's an interesting approach--seems like you turned the S5 into an AM hub!

John E

BigChief has the same objection to the AW that I do -- the ratio steps are too wide. I had the same gripe with the old two-speed Bendix hub on my first bike, an early 1950s Schwinn middleweight. This is why I really liked the 14-16-18-20 Cyclo cluster set on my old 12-speed hybrid transmission. With a 40T chainring and an AW hub I had the equivalent of 53-40-30/14-16-18-20, which is not a bad set of crossover gears, with only two redundancies at the range changes.

Grand Bois

I use a trigger shifter and a Suntour friction thumb shifter with my S5/2.



The originals were crappy stem-mounted shifters. The S5/2 doesn't use a bellcrank.



I ran the cables as if they were derailer cables with no pulleys or fulcrum clips. There is no functional difference. It's one indexed and one friction cable.

BigChief 

For this type of bike, casual riding in the South Florida terrain, the close ratios on the S5 hub are just about perfect. I might very well find a clean way of disabling the left side and use it as an AM type hub. One thing's for sure, I'm sold on the closer ratios for 3 speed hubs.

Ed.

Disable? Why on earth would one do that when it is so simple to make operational?

rhm

Disabling it is as easy as removing the shifter, cable, and bell crank.

I suppose you might do this for aesthetic reasons... but I really like the extra gear range. A compromise measure might be to convert the hub to a four speed; many people convert four speeds to five, but the opposite is just as easy.

BigChief 

I did have it operational. I rode it around for 2 weeks with the bell crank connected to a downtube shifter.
I even made up a left sided cable guide. It does work. If I liked the two outer gears I would find a way to engage
them from a more convenient location. I just don't need them and don't want the clutter of another shifter I won't use.
For now, I'll braze a cap onto a spare axle nut just to keep dirt and moisture out of the hub. I might play around with a second shifter someday, but I'm not very motivated to. I'm very happy to have a 3 speed geared just the way I've always wanted.