Rear wheel angst..

[Druncle]

Afternoon folks.
I became the very happy owner of a model 18 last november. Since then, I have come to realise that what I purchased was not what it seemed, and is a collection of bits from different years. As I was after something to fettle, and not overly concerned with originality, this has not been a great problem, and I have enjoyed learning the ways of the mag and dynamo and suchlike. But I think I have the wrong rear wheel; it has, I was 'informed' a '52 frame. The swingarm clearly has the setup for chain adjuster cams, however the rear wheel is a qd item, which seems wrong. As I say originality is not my goal, but neither is landing on my ear due to a dodgy rear end. Any suggeestions?
Cheers John.

[Rob Harknett]

Perhaps you were miss informed ??? brake plates differ on the wheels, not sure if the frame anchor is the same. Any pictures ?

[Druncle]

The swinging arm has the single adjuster on the offside, which led me to think it was a later wheel. I am happy to be educated on this however.

[Pharisee]

Don't know if it'll help but my '55 Model 18 has the QD rear wheel fitted and that has screw adjusters, one each side.

[Druncle]

That looks much better.. perhaps the relevant swingarm would be a solution.

[Druncle]

Will try to upload some pics, Pharisee's set up would make sense of my rear wheel.. need to see how available one would be, unless I can come up with a more lateral solution. And yes, my use of the word informed in inverted commas was meant to signify my being misinformed (on many counts)

[Druncle]

Turns out (many thanks Rob) that my frame and engine are '49, with a later wheel confirmed, currently not a good setup regarding wheel allignment. So my options are... find a proper earlier wheel, fit a later s.a. (assuming it would fit the frame ok) which sounds cheaper, or, seeing if I could fabricate and attach later style wheel adjusters to the older s.a...as in Pharisees pics. If anyone has any strong feelings on this approach, I would be very interested . Cheers all ☺
.

[Rob Harknett]

You have the same screw adjusters in the swinging arm, also same spindle and spacers etc. as I have on my 1955 with FW hub. So perhaps the SA has already been changed to suit the wheel etc.. Unless you want correct swinging arm all the fitting and cotton reel hub, plus correct Mc Candles rear suspension. Which may be very difficult to find. Why not just leave everything as it is. Just remember, you have got 1955 S/A wheel and jampots when it comes to wanting parts. Wheel you have the wheel out, if it has metal pins in metal holes, its he first 55 only full width hub wheel. If it has rubber inserts its 56 onwards FW hub wheel. You may be able to tell by rocking the wheel back and forth with the brake on, if it clonks like metal on metal due to a little free play, they had when new, it's probably 55.

[Druncle]

I only have one screw adjuster on the inner rh arm, which I thought was for the earlier hub, with cam adjusters on each side ...
Or am I missing something?

[Rob Harknett]

NO, its me that's missing something. I looked at the pictures here, that are not of your bike. I wondered why it all looked so good for a 55 type wheel. As I was sure I saw pictures that did not show the chain adjusters. You do need adjusters both sides, to adjust the chain , also line the wheels up. THe wheel will pull up to one side unless an adjuster stops it doing so.