On Tue, 15 Apr 2008 22:22:36 -0500, Gary Young wrote:

On Wed, 16 Apr 2008 02:30:10 +0000, Ryan Cousineau wrote:

In article
,
landotter wrote:

On Apr 15, 6:01 pm, Jeff Welch wrote:
I have an old huffy 3-speed, my best guess is that it is from the
1970's. I'm just learning how to maintain and repair my own bike,
and was wondering if it is possible to convert the current Shimano
3-speed hub to one of their new Nexus 7-speed hubs. Where would I
start to figure out if it's even possible? (Tire size, frame fork,
something else?)

Sure, it's possible. A Sturmey Archer hub might be a better choice for
that frame spacing, if you don't want to spread it. Plenty of options
with and without brakes.

To elaborate, you'll almost certainly want to build a new wheel around
the Nexus hub, so just find out what the old wheel size was (you can
easily determine that from the tire markings or by taking it to a
half-competent LBS), and spec the necessary rim from there.

The Nexus 7 hubs can be built with rim, roller, or coaster brake setups,
so you can preserve the present braking setup or change it as you
prefer.

As Landotter suggests, an S-A 7-speed will fit in your frame without
changing the rear spacing, though potentially at the cost of a bit of
efficiency and niceness that the Nexus hubs have.

Does Sturmey make a 7-speed hub? If you mean the 8-speed hub, that may
not be a good choice for the OP because the gearing is better suited to
small-wheeled bikes:


Nonsense.

The only difference between a small-wheeled version and a large-wheeled
version of a successful Nexus conversion are the sizes of the chainring and
rear cog; the internal arrangements of the gearhub have no increased
suitablilty for wheels of any size. The only considerations of this order
that would be of importance are range of gearing available and maximum
torque allowed.