Phils with threaded flange?

Jay Beattie wrote:
On Apr 5, 8:03 am, Tim McNamara wrote:
In article
,

Chalo wrote:
One of my friends has an anecdote about a triplet racing team doing a
hillclimb event with high-spoke-count Phil hubs of such construction,
and quickly collapsing their rear wheel when the drive flange screwed
further up the shell.
I wondered about that possibility looking at the photos, but can it
actually happen? The trailing spokes would have to stretch lots and
lots to allow the flange to rotate on the hub shell, like centimeters.

That was the lore in the '70s -- although it never happened to me or
anyone else I knew. It always seemed to me back then that there was a
need to tell tales about equipment. Everyone rode the same Campy NR/
SR. Nothing worked that well or broke that much, so we had to invent
big differences and lore -- like people who could feel the difference
between 3 and 4 cross.-- Jay Beattie.

"It" happened to me twice (tandem, circa 1982). But let me explain -
the flange the freewheel rests against didn't turn, it was simply forced
inward over its threads (ripping out the aluminum threads in the
process. The spokes would /not/ allow the flange to turn, no.

These were both even earlier Phil hubs, where the flange had a ?chamfer?
on the inner face. Hmmm... how to describe it? The flange-shell
interface was narrower than later models when measured along the axle
direction because the flange inner diameter was cut away for, oh, say
3-6mm on the inner face. Crude ASCII art below

____
| |
| |
| | -crude aluminum flange cross-section
| \__ (NOT! to scale!)
___\_______|_____
|
| - stainless hub shell
|

We sent the first one [1] back to Phil and were told they'd seen the
problem before, and were working on a new design. Of course they
replaced our hub with the new kind. To my eyes at least, the only
change was that the inner face of the flange went straight down to the
shell, increasing the number of acting threads. We killed a second
original-design hub in the next year or so, and that one was replaced by
Phil as well (we had both a 48-spoke set of touring wheels and a pair of
36-spoke fast/light wheels.)

[1] Killed the first one on our tandem at the Fargo Street Hill climb in
LA with a one-to-one gear and youthful enthusiasm. It died with just
one pedal stoke that was way too hard. Second one died on a steep bit
on a century ride. In both cases, suddenly the bike slowed and the
pedaling "went soft" - it was clear that if we torqued on the cranks,
the freewheel was turning faster than the wheel was. In the first case
we probably only went about one turn of the cranks (hence one of the
freewheel), it was a sickening feeling. In the second case somehow we
limped back to the start of the ride (by a severe shortcut), so
apparently we didn't toast the threads so badly. I'm not sure how that
makes sense, perhaps we bottomed the freewheel on the hub shell. In
neither case did the wheel collapse, but both were strong and treated
very gingerly after the "smoosh". No problems at all with the two
replacements, and we've since put over ten thousand miles, some very
steep, on them.

I have absolutely no idea how the Ebay/OP hub broke, but it doesn't look
like it was in use, the failure mode that we experienced was radically
different.

Mark J.

Mark wrote:

Jay Beattie wrote:

Tim McNamara wrote:

Chalo wrote:

One of my friends has an anecdote about a triplet racing team doing a
hillclimb event with high-spoke-count Phil hubs of such construction,
and quickly collapsing their rear wheel when the drive flange screwed
further up the shell.

I wondered about that possibility looking at the photos, but can it
actually happen? The trailing spokes would have to stretch lots and
lots to allow the flange to rotate on the hub shell, like centimeters.

That was the lore in the '70s -- although it never happened to me or
anyone else I knew. It always seemed to me back then that there was a
need to tell tales about equipment. Everyone rode the same Campy NR/
SR. Nothing worked that well or broke that much, so we had to invent
big differences and lore -- like people who could feel the difference
between 3 and 4 cross.-- Jay Beattie.

"It" happened to me twice (tandem, circa 1982). But let me explain -
the flange the freewheel rests against didn't turn, it was simply forced
inward over its threads (ripping out the aluminum threads in the
process. The spokes would /not/ allow the flange to turn, no.

That explains the failure in my friend's tale much better. And it
makes sense, really-- the freewheel's steel threads should be strong
enough to shear an equal number of aluminum threads when they tighten
against each other hard enough.

Chalo