Has anyone out there in Cabeland laced up drum brakes off of a Schwinn Town & Country into S-2 wheels?

[buickmike]

That looks like something other than Schwinn made. Reason I say that is because when you look for Schwinn drum a lot of those pop up. Maybe u can put s2 alongside of present wheel and see how things line up.

 

[WillWork4Parts]

That looks like something other than Schwinn made. Reason I say that is because when you look for Schwinn drum a lot of those pop up. Maybe u can put s2 alongside of present wheel and see how things line up.

It's a Union drum brake. I've seen them on mid 60s up to 67 Schwinn Tandems, but I've yet to pinpoint when they started being used.

 

[WillWork4Parts]

What’s the trick with getting the drive hub off to install spokes? Any special tools?

There are specific tools for each brand and era of freewheel. I can't quite tell from this picture who makes the yours, it's probably Villiers. Clean and maybe look for a name and a pair of notches inboard from the 2 pin holes that are visible in your picture and post another pic.

The 2 pin holes are for a left hand threaded bearing race, do not loosen this until a last resort....or if you are ready to collect the tiny loose ball bearings that will come spewing forth...or you just really feel like taking on the tedious process of cleaning, servicing, and reassembling the freewheel.

If a tool can't be found to remove the freewheel properly, you can remove that race and drive teeth(with every other little piece that falls out and underneath the hardest to reach area under the work bench LOL), then clamp the flats of the steel body in a sturdy vice and rotate CCW. Gripping with tire still installed and inflated is recommended since it takes a fair amount of force to remove the freewheel.

 

[Muleman121]

The last one of those single freewheel assy's I took off, had to heat it with a torch toy get it loose. Ruined the freewheel but saved the hub. Another way is to remove the axel and carefully cut channels in the threaded center of the freewheel to fit a remover tool. Then reinstall the axel and use a vice to loosen it. Do not unlace the wheel untill the freewheel is off. Sometimes there is a date on the shoes and on the shoe cam. Last one I had said 60.

 

[WillWork4Parts]

The last one of those single freewheel assy's I took off, had to heat it with a torch toy get it loose. Ruined the freewheel but saved the hub. Another way is to remove the axel and carefully cut channels in the threaded center of the freewheel to fit a remover tool. Then reinstall the axel and use a vice to loosen it. Do not unlace the wheel untill the freewheel is off. Sometimes there is a date on the shoes and on the shoe cam. Last one I had said 60.

This is the truth in most cases that you have to remove the freewheel before spokes.

Interestingly enough, this Union hub has slotted flanges that should let you remove the spokes and leave the freewheel on.

 

[AS-1]

Just wondering if anyone has laced up drum brakes from a Schwinn Town & Country ? They look similar to the prewar hubs? If so what size spoke did you use? Any help much appreciated! Thanks

Do you want to lace them back to S-4s or over to S-2s?

 

[Schwinn Sales West]

You have received the best advice so far in that you need to figure out how to remove the freewheel BEFORE you unlace the wheel. Optimly you would want to use a method that would save the freewheel. Plan B would be to destroy the freewheel and save the hub. It's going to be tight.

All things being equal, no matter what hub your talking about (front/rear/or Hi/Lo drum) the spoke length for a S-4, S-5, or S-7 rim is going to be "too long" when laced into your S-2 rims. Best method is to calculate the correct length for both the right side, and the hub left side. That said, you might determine the best optimal spoke length, but it always comes down to what limited lengths you can obtain in a .105 ga sized spoke.

You don't say what you plan to do with these new wheels, so this may or might not apply to your project. You can obtain a lot more sizes in an .080 ga spoke, and they are plenty strong. If the holes are too large you can use washers to reduce the size. Back in the day, bike shops stocked spoke washers. They were roughly about a #4, very thin steel washer and they were commonly used "inside the rim' hidden by the rim strip to repair rims that the nipple pulled through. Many hollow sew-up racing wheels were built with washers on the nipple ends to distribute the load. Today we have aluminum "Pop Rivet Washers" that come in various sizes, and weight almost nothing. You want to use a soft washer that will deform to the required shape. In the correct size, they could be used on the hub end or rim/nipple end. This might even help with your slotted spoke holes in the Hi/Lo hubs.

John

 

[WillWork4Parts]

I did some measuring on my Union hubs and some calculations. It seems like the engineers back then must have planned most hubs around using this standard 269mm(10-19/32") length spoke because the front came out the same minus standard thread difference for offset created by 5 speed freewheel cluster. You may need to confirm your rear hub dimensions to get the right length for your single speed hub. The shell may be the same width between flanges, but surely has a shorter Over Locknut Dimension. First image has front hub dimensions and second image has the rear.

 

[Schwinn Sales West]

Are we sure the wider hub will fit into the fork I laced a drum hub onta a rechromed S-2 not realizing the 3/8 axle kept it from fitting onto prewar fork

This can be overcome by just adding two small flats on the axle in the area of the fork end. It was made this way on the BMX hubs from the factory. You only need to remove the raised threads, not file deep into the axle.

John

 

[Mymando]

Do you want to lace them back to S-4s or over to S-2s?

S-2’s