Some Pics From Me Fitting Track Ends to My Old Raleigh

A couple of people have asked about fitting track ends to an old steel road/mtb frame. This is what I did with my old Raleigh Yukon:

Here is what I started with; 23" Raleigh Yukon MTB frame, reynolds 501 all terrain tube set, slightly tired but still pretty solid. I later cut/filed off the braze-ons and brake posts too.

After stripping the paint back (and vile smelling plastic coating) with a blow lamp and wire brush. you can see where the flat plate drop out is brazed into the ends of the stays, there is a small amount of brass showing at the joints.

These are the track ends I chose, Long Shen LR15 from Ceeway :http://www.framebuilding.com/Frame%20Ends%203.htm in retrospect a flat plate drop out like the RE1410 http://www.framebuilding.com/Frame%20Ends%202.htm would have made life much easier, they could have been brazed in place of the originals with very little work.

This shows the new track end laid over the original drop out, I had measured the angles to make sure they would be a pretty close fit.

I cut the drop outs in half between the stays so I could remove them one joint at a time, I cut the first with a hacksaw, then resorted to oxy-acetylene for the other (fire is much more fun than manual hand tools). We then heated the joins where the dropout entered the seat and chain stays one as a time to melt the brass (the tubes got to a good cherry red/orange)before the brass turned molten, then the lumps of dropout were tweeked and pulled out one at a time. This left the ends of the stays as shown here, now if I'd have bought the flat plate track ends I could have just filed the ends to fit into the stays and brazed them in, would have taken 20mins.

I offered the track end up again to check alignment and measure where I would need to cut the end of the stays, once cut I then needed to ream out the stays to get a nice snug fit.

I cut the stays to length, the chain stay just needed a little reaming to fit, the seatstay was determined to be a right pain in the arse! The lug on the track end would not fit into the seat stay, too larger diameter, so firstly I cut it off flush and concentrated on getting the chainstay right:

Once the chainstay was good, I went back to the seat stay. I decided the best solution was to cut away at the outer of the track end, to create a new lug that would fit inside the seat stay, this proved not that hard, dremel being the weapon of choice, as you can see this lug now fitted inside the seat stay and gave plenty of surface to braze. my plan is to build it up with brass of silver solder and file a nice smooth transition from the track end to the seat stay.

We brazed the track ends in like this with a block of metal bolted between them to ensure the track ends stayed aligned and the design just so happened to reduce the spacing from 135mm down to 120mm (ok that was a happy coincidence) and then the back end of the bike was hammerited white. since then the seatstay to seat tube join has fractured on one side (looks a pretty crappy braze from new), so the frame is layed up until I get this repaired, I will then add more brass or silver solder and get the transitions from track end to stays much smoother, then get the frame powder coated. the work I have done on the frame seems to have held up pretty well to the rigours of a 19stone oaf commuting on rough roads and over kerbs on them. If I was to do the conversion again, I would use the flat plate track ends as it would have saved a lot of time and made the job much easier and neater.

Thanks for that very interesting. Nice step by step pics.

TheBrick(Tommy) Thanks for that very interesting. Nice step by step pics.

tommy can you show us your way with hammer and chisel? :p

dogsballs [quote]TheBrick(Tommy) Thanks for that very interesting. Nice step by step pics.

tommy can you show us your way with hammer and chisel? :p[/quote]

Yep with any luck should be doing that this w/e. For this job I may just the smaller hammer for the peisision work with some jubilee hose clips;)

and the finished product?

Must get some piccies of it now its done, TBH I still have not smoothed the track end to stays properly, they could do with a bit more brass and fileing, structurally they are ok, but not really pretty, and the hammerite smooth chipped off way to quickly.

Good for you, that is cool.

aha... that's how it should be done...

Nephs aha... that's how it should be done...

hows yours holding up nephs?

I tried Tommy's hammer and chisel method - worked quite well ;-)

tomasito [quote]Nephs aha... that's how it should be done...

hows yours holding up nephs?[/quote]

They're actually holding up just fine. Ive been riding it a lot and still havent seen a crack orsign of a break. havent painted the frame yet thou, just added some paint to prevent rust and duct taped the frame.

Lets say they've more than met all of my non-existent expectations...

nicely done

slamm I tried Tommy's hammer and chisel method - worked quite well ;-)

yeah, and tommy is a sex god!!

dogsballs yeah, and tommy is a sex god!!

I know.

ha!

finished pics, this is what they look like, brazed in, squirted with white hammerite smooth, then chipped to fuck!!!

I'm sure hammerite used to stick better than this!!!

4 Attachments

rusty already?

much respec for the NoTyres™

where they hard to fit?

the thief proof wheelnuts are a pretty good idea too

bit of surface rust, its only 501 steel and has been through a winter!! I'm going to tidy up the joins with a bit of braze and file, then clean the frame and powdercoat it black (maybe with prismatic flake like my monty frame:
if I'm feeling tarty!

RPM: I'm going for the minimalist look, I reckon I can remove about 33 spokes to give me a proper trispoke wheel next ;)

bump for the win

What torch did you use to melt the copper into the braze when you re attached?
Can this be done with a blow torch? or do you need an oxyacetalene (no idea how to spell it)?
Im looking to get rack drops out on my steel road bike.. but cant find anyone in london to do it..
You think this will last or fall to bits?