rear triangle replacement

Hi all, I recently built up an old Rudge 3-speed frame as my first fixed wheel bike. I've been pretty happy with the result, however I have experienced some problems due to using old, worn parts; this is partly due to tightness on my part but also largely due to the fact that it's pretty hard to get bits that fit a frame probably in excess of 50 years old. There are a couple of solutions to this problem but the one I'd like to ask about is rear triangle replacement. I see Mercian will do this for a quoted price of £225 but has anyone had experience of doing it themselves? Any hints or advice regarding such an operation, pitfalls to be avoided etc, would be very interesting to hear about. My brazing experience is limited to a lamp I made about 30 years ago in metalwork at school but I'm willing to give it a go if it'll work and if I can get some reasonably priced tools and tubes etc. Anyone with experience, please share it.
Cheers.

I don't have any frame building experience but I think it would be a ballache to do it yourself. You would need to borrow a jig as well as the brazing gear to make sure everything is aligned correctly.

It seems a shame to rebuild half of a 50 year old frame to fit new parts if it isn't damaged. It might be cheaper overall to invest in a more modern frame. Depends how attached to the frame you are!

Dan

You make a very good point and when I built the bike I went out of my way not to change the frame in any way. However, I now have to accept due to the dropout size and stay spacing, it's going to be hard to make a reliable bike from it unless I return it to an original sturmey archer 3 speed, which is not a configuration that would be any real use to me. I have no strong attachment to the frame but if I don't use it, I doubt anyone else will and I hate to leave a problem unresolved. I could bend out the stays and file open the dropouts but it's a bit brutal, also since my wife bought me Chimonas' frame building book for Christmas, I've been quite keen to have a go. I've been thinking of getting hold of a torch for a while as I mess around with classic cars a lot and there's been a few times I could have used one. I don't mind having a go at knocking up a jig but if the whole project seems a non-starter or if there's any other advice, I'd love to hear.

I'm not quite sure what the problems you're facing are, and how replacement of the rear triangle might cure them.

If it's rear dropout spacing, brute force to bend out the stays is the approved method of adjustment - cold setting, if you don't want to frighten folk off ... Sheldon Brown has a useful discussion of issues and methods, and also talks about how to ensure the dropout faces are parallel afterwards.

You also mentioned filing the dropouts - is this because it is (say) a 9mm dropout and a 10mm axle? I wouldn't hesitate - and it seems to me a bit less brutal than ripping the poor thing apart only to rebuild half of it.

Obviously having a play with brazing seems as much of a motivator as simply getting the bike running again, but TBH I'd be more inclined to get some tubing and lugs from Ceeway (and probably a metric fuck-ton of their practice lugs and tubes as well).

Thanks for the reply, unfortunately Rudge frames are very much imperial, a 9mm axle is too big, it needs 5/16". The logic behind the original question is thus: i have used a 5/16" axle on a rear hub designed for a 3/8" as there is no readily available fixed hub with the right axle. This has led to problems setting the cone adjustment and I have found that even the slightest movement of the lock nut translates into alarming play at the wheel rim, coupled with the fact that the balls fall out with only a little bit more gap on the cone, it does not lead to worry-free riding. The other problem is that the BB cups are worn but due to their 26 tpi thread, are hard to replace. My original thought was to file open the dropouts and wait for a BB to turn up, however due to the angle of the dropouts, filing will reduce the available lateral adjustment. I then thought, perhaps I could replace the dropouts for conventional fixed/track ones, however I suspect getting plug ones to fit the odd sized tubing will be more of a headache than getting an axle. Then I thought if I replaced the whole rear triangle with the BB the whole thing would be much simpler, I was going to dismiss this thought as ridiculous but before doing so I googled it, whereupon I discovered Mercian will do such a job. My reaction to this discovery was, well Mercian charge about 5 times what the actual frame is worth but if they can do it, maybe I can; hence the question. In reality I am unlikely to take on such a radical project and I will probably file an axle to fit and suffer a noisy BB for the foreseeable future, however I thought it'd be interesting to ask if anyone else had trodden this road.

Chances are you are going to spend £300 on a frame that still wont be exactly what you want. You would be better off spending the money on a classy, modern steel frame that wont cause you any issues. Something like a surly steamroller or genesis flyer.
Filing drop-outs takes and age but will be fine. 26tpi bottom brackets do turn up, look on retrobike for that sort of stuff. Your probably best cleaning up the cups you have and maybe replace the bearings.

Thanks for the advice. It's back on the road now, I filed the hub's original axle to fit the frame.