My plan for the singlespeed, given the age and style of the frame, is to build it up with good quality and interesting older parts sourced mostly via eBay. I have a tight budget so I’m trying to be a bit clever and a bit cheap. As far as possible I’ll buy good used kit that is maybe a bit off the beaten track rather than mainstream pricey stuff, or cheap new stuff. But some things I’ll compromise on, where new makes sense e.g. dual pivot brakes.
Now initially I was thinking of making it a geared bike so I got lucky buying some Campagnolo Nuovo Record derailleurs from the 1970’s in beautiful condition. I love the desiogn of these but they’re not needed now, so they are destined for the parts bin and another project.
Next step was the wheels. The frame was build for 27″ wheels but it’s hard to get these now and besides they generally don’t run the high tyre pressures you can get on 700c rims due to the rim design. I want this to be a good quick everyday bike and basically there are millions of 700c wheels and tyres out there. I checked with some other 700c wheels and they’ll do fine in the frame and brake reach seems OK (more on that later).
I found some 1980’s vintage 700c wheels on eBay. Suntour Superbe Pro hubs (and they are indeed superb), Ambrosio and Mavic rims (mixed but cosmetically matching) in decent condition, dirty but pretty good underneath the grime. They also were fitted with some nice almost completely unworn Rubino kevlar tyres which will do fine for commuting.
So I took a punt and picked them up for just over £30. That’s not even the price of one decent hub so I was pretty happy with that. The hubs are in beautiful condition and are indeed the legendary polished, almost track grade Superbe Pros featured in many online nostalgic discussions about the once brilliant Suntour.
The rims are of good quality, the rear wheel runs true but the front has one broken spoke – easy enough to replace and I’ll true the wheel and check all the spoke tensions at the same time. They have been stored in the dark, inside so the tyres show no sign of deterioration, the main hassle being that they have been run as a “ghetto tubeless” setup with sealant goo not very neatly applied and now definitely not sealing, so there will need to be some cleaning up. I’ll change them back to tubes for simplicity.
So, are Suntour hubs suitable for conversion to singlespeed? I wasn’t sure but Sheldon Brown seemed to suggest that all modern screw-on hubs are the same ISO 24 TPI thread. The difference on Suntours is the 7 speed screw-on freewheel has a different removal tool with 4 prongs. Park Tools make one and it’s reasonably priced, but I couldn’t find one in the UK and shipping from the US would be slower and more expensive for what is in essence a one-off job.
This is about the right size
I decided to make my own Suntour freewheel removal tool. I took an old wood chisel of about 2″ wide and the blade was a good size to fit across 2 of the four notched recesses in the freewheel. I hacksawed it off close to the shoulder (where the steel is thickest) and filed it flat and smooth to remove burrs and weak points.
Big Al's Patent Freewheel Remover Tool
I then had to think about how to hold the wheel to unscrew the freewheel from a hub it had been firmly attached to for probably 25 years. Sheldon Brown, as ever, has a few pointers on freewheel removal.
Roof Truss Wheel Clamp
Noting Sheldon’s comments on the difficulty of holding the wheel firmly, I had a moment of inspiration. In our loft (which is also my workshop) we have a lot of inconvenient exposed diagonal roof trusses. For once they were useful and made the perfect wheel clamp. With tyre inflated (thanks for the tip Sheldon) and positioned such that I was turning the wheel into the apex of the triangular gap, it was held absolutely rock solid.
All I had to do now was test my removal tool. The key, of course, is to have enough leverage. I was worried my improvised tool would shear as it was only bearing on 2 out of 4 slots, so I had filed it carefully flat and removed any burrs which could be stress points. I made sure it was a good snug fit and that it could go fully into the 2 slots I was using. I then applied maximum leverage using a large pipe wrench with a 20″ handle (you get more control with a long bar and constant pressure than a short bar and jerking on it). I then put my weight firmly onto the pipe wrench and…
Removing the Freewheel Block
…it broke free and then unscrewed easily. Perfecto. I now have my threaded hub ready for a singlespeed or fixie setup.
The Naked Hub