Bust sturmey archer hub - options?

hey

so i've got an old raleigh dawn roadster (bought on here) which was running smoothly until about the gears no longer worked. As I dont mind using one gear I left it and it had been working fine. Few days ago however it made some gruesome noises and packed in. Brought it to my local bike shop and they tell me the sturmey archer hub is bust. A hub is hard to get hold of and would require building it to the wheel at a cost of around £100+. So the cheapest option ended up being buying a new wheel with a single freewheel cog - £65.
Question for you... is this my best option? Does anyone maybe have a complete raleigh 26" wheel with 3speed hub for sale?! Are the prices reasonable?

appreciate your advice!!!!!

Cost of £100+? Go to a different shop would be my advice, that's ridiculously expensive.

I see SA hubs at car boot sales all the time, usually for just a couple of quid. On ebay they'll sell for less than a tenner. My LBS built such a hub into a Mavic Open Sport for £60 (spokes + rim + labour).

The hubs are pretty bulletproof anyway. Upturn the bike, oil the hub, remove chain, spin the hub by the sprocket and pull around on the indicator chain and see if you can get it working. In my experience, nearly all problems with SA hubs are with the shifter/cable, not the hub itself.

The hub is easy enough to strip and rebuild if you have a vice and a bit of patience. There are very detailed instructions online that I used and got a lovely result from. A bit more of a pain if it's still in the wheel, but worth a try and very informative.

Where abouts are you, can have a look at it for you.

lynx may I ask where you are? I have a SA problem not dissimilar and feel inadequate!

bear in mind that this will be 26 x 1 3/8 (590mm) which is different from 26" (559mm). I suppose you can still get a rim in that size, albeit a pretty basic one?

There are basic rims around in both steel and alloy online, nothing fancy though. Also NOS stuff on ebay. All 26 x 1 3/8. Factory built front wheels too, only noticed alloy rim (basic) though. For me its a question of cost; both appropriate to the bike / frame and bearing in mind the more interesting projects waiting in the wings!

Archie Wilkinson sell good quality 26 x 1 3/8 rims for cycle speedway. I emailed him a while ago and at the time he was happy to sell me a couple of silver box section alloy rims on their own.

http://www.archie-wilkinson.co.uk/wheels-and-tyres.html

I have an back wheel - 26 x 1 3/8 - with a working 3 speed SA hub. Rim is about 18 months old, alloy, nowt fancy. Yours for £15. Only issue is that it's in Oxford.

As you may already have gathered, the things are cheap and plentiful, possibly the most common wheel/hub ever, and over the years they have made hundreds of thousands of them. Your bike shop is taking the piss.

They are bulletproof, and it's extremely rare for them to fail. It's usually down to poor lubrication and incorrect cable adjustment. They are fairly simple to tear down and rebuild and spare parts are readily available and very cheap.

I have an back wheel - 26 x 1 3/8 - with a working 3 speed SA hub. Rim is about 18 months old, alloy, nowt fancy. Yours for £15. Only issue is that it's in Oxford.

Am I coming near Oxford soon....... umm No!! But if you would consider posting that at a reasonable cost I will have it! I assume it can fit in the dropouts of a late 60s raleigh frame; perhaps a cheapie courier, I have used some before and could sort that out if you want.... let me know what you think.

http://www.sheldonbrown.com/sturmey-archer/adj.html

http://www.sheldonbrown.com/sturmey-archer.html

These guides should help, I'm in woolwich and do the occassional beers.

I've not broken one yet, or found a broken one. The problems I've found have always been with the cable. You can also work alter the three speeds to a two speed fixed. Now thats what I like to do.

Can't be arsed posting/couriering it really. Just replied on the off chance.

If you don't manage to sort it out (agree with all of the comments on here - they're bombproof/fixable/findable) then I'll be in London on the bank holiday weekend if you want to pick it up. Somewhere West-ish, no doubt.

It's from an old Raleigh frame, which is sadly no longer with us. So yes, it should fit.

understandable, thanks