De-Singulation and 130mm conversion!

I'm getting the goods collected together, from my bottomless pit of bizarre retro bike parts, to build up the Rocky Mountain. One of the issues to sort is wheels, and while the Rocky will get a proper 7 speed Hyperglide drivetrain, the frame is old enough that it has 130mm rear dropout spacing, so I'll have to do a wee bit of finagling to get together a read hub that is both 130mm and HG. For space purposes, I've temporarily taken apart the white EWR and hung it from the rafters, so I'll use those wheels and modify from there. The EWR was last used as a single speed, with Surly Singleator hub conversion, so first thing to do is pull the guts from the Surly-ed hub, and then use the 10mm Allen to mount up the freehub body.


Here we're done the gutting, and removed the Singleator, and refitted the NOS 7spd HG freehub body, that was originally on this hub before the single speed conversion. The rim here is an older Sun Rhyno Lite, and we all know Rhyno Lites suck big white polar bear wieners, so after I've completed the hub rebuild, the rim goes in the pooper and I'll rebuild the back wheel to a Mavic 717. I've already swapped out the Rhyno for the 717 in the front so the back is due. Rhyno Lites were the worst rims ever made in the 'modern' age of mountain biking. Garbage.

Looking in, you see the fresh Shimano grease inside the bearing surfaces of the hub body, and the splines for the 10mm Allen shaft which holds the freehub body to the hub itself.

This is a low mileage Ultegra 8spd 130mm donor hub. The axle and cones, nuts and spacers for the new 130mm rebuilt unit I'm building up will come from there. The 8spd freehub body itself is the same as Deore XT unit, so it's good for spares. Into the box it goes!

Slather liberally with Phil's grease. All my hub rebuilds get Phil's in them. The stuff is great for bearing surfaces that see water, as a bicycle hub in Florida would. The bearings go in next.

Non-drive side assembled, but no dust shield yet. Here you can see that I've lubed up my balls with Phil's goo and then put them side by side in the hole.

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Sorry about that. You have to put a 'lubed' joke in a hub rebuild post. It's the law.

Then, simply insert the 130mm axle, spaced just a smidge over to the drive side for 7 speeds and not 8, and then thread on the cone and spacers and nut to the non drive side and adjust. You can use another 7 speed hub to gauge the axle spacing against when you get to this stage.

Now I'll strip down the wheel and chuck the Rhyno Lite in the recyclers, and order some spokes up and start lacing! I've got a set of 28 hole M900 XTR hubs, and Sun 0 degree Tomac rims in red that I'll also be lacing up. I'd better get cracking if I have three wheels to build and I don't even have the spokes yet! Good thing I don't do this type of work for a living anymore!

After, we cubed a roast, and set up some kabobs with bell pepper, pineable, mushrooms and tomatoes, and then ate like pigs. Good thing I don't ride a bike for a living either!