Is this normal? narrow forks on an 80's raleigh.

My forks seem to be too narrow for my wheel and i'm not sure why.

I have a Raleigh record spring (around 1984 i think because it has the older graphic set) which not so long ago had a bit of an incident with a car, unfortunately the car won and my front wheel was bent in half. I got a cheap new wheel with the intention of building up the original hub again (mainly because it was gold and shiney), when i fitted the new wheel it was a bit of a wrestle to get on but went on in the end and i was just happy to be riding again.

I have been doing some work on my bike today and decided to have a look at the front wheel. It was VERY hard to get off, Once off i looked at the fork and its a good 8/10mm narrower than the wheel fittings. On closer inspection the new wheel does look wider than the original by about 5 mm (are older hubs different sizes?) but the original hub is still hard to get into the forks.

Is this at all normal? Or have i bent my forks in the crash? they don't look lopsided. the forks look ok but i am wondering whether they are that safe to ride on when i have to stretch them open to fit on. They're made from reynolds 501 tubing so fairly chunky stuff.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/38756139@N02/3890595260/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/38756139@N02/3889808089/

Any advice would be much appreciated.

It is indeed quite normal for older bikes to have narrower spacing. You can normally get away with sticking a too big/small wheel in the back and allowing frame to bend. But it is a lot trickier to do at the front so I would recommend you respace your hub to the appropriate size.

-edit-

Just looked at your pic. You wont be able to get that newer hub any smaller. So, you could try to stick it back in and live with it. But I have found doing so in forks (not the back of a bike) often results in uneven bending in the fork legs and improper clamping at the ends.

If youve managed before, Im sure it is fine to continue. But ideally you want something to match the frame spacing.

You could try finding a local framebuilder to cold-set the forks to a wider spacing.

If it's a tight fit just jam it in, that's what I say.

Tight is better than loose. At least that's what they say in the porn industry.

Did you get that pelvic floor exercise video I sent you? It did wonders for me.

Yeah, worked brilliantly. Like fuckin' Van Damme now.