George M. in Denver, Co. - Just signed up!

Rat Rod Bikes Bicycle Forum

Help Support Rat Rod Bikes Bicycle Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
Joined
Oct 29, 2022
Messages
5
Reaction score
3
Location
Denver, CO
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
I've been riding solo for YEARS - and now it's time to join the community! Just plain old simple one speed coaster bikes are what I love.
People say things to me like "Well, you know you can't really RIDE those!" . . .and I answer "But I DO! All the time, everywhere!"
Here's a question I REALLY hope I can find a solution to:
One of my Pabst PBR promo bikes, and I've got two, hey you can't have just one, and I've definitely changed out a lot of parts, they're quite customized now! (Well, I'll attach photos next time, it's already too late at night now)
but here's the question, one of them has the super cool high spoke count wheels, and in fact, I wanted to put a pair of those on my other PBR bike too, BUT . . .
I've run into a snag. My super cool vintage NOS Royce Union speedo (looks similar to the tiny old Schwinn speedos), well, the two prongs on the speedo drive gear won't fit correctly between the extra spokes of the high spoke count rim. . .and the bike shop doesn't think it's a good idea to damage the integrity of the rim by removing spokes just so the gear will fit, and I agree.
Just wondering if there's some way to make this work? I'm really psyched to keep those rims on this bike, but I would like to be able to add this speedo as well!
And the bike shop is basically telling me it's one, or the other. The high spoke count rims, or the speedo, but I can't have both. . .so the only solution is if I can find a different type of gear drive, OR somehow retrofit what I already have? Anyone out there have experience attaching a vintage speedo to a bike with high spoke count wheels?
 
@George M. Your drive looks like this with 2 finfers in the spokes?
Maybe shape or trim fingers or maybe cut down to 1. Another Idea may be to reshape them, drill a small hole in each and yie on spokes with fine wire?
royce speedo.jpg
 
Hi it's George again. Wow I already got some awesome replies to my question! And horsefarmer, yup I got the SAME Royce Union box, so you know exactly what part I'm talking about! Are they really called 'finfers'? Never heard that word before!
But sure sounds like you've got some experience with this issue!
So I'm adding photos, just so anyone else reading this can see exactly what the issue is - these little tabs of the gear drive don't fit correctly in the spokes, because of the EXTRA spokes of this high spoke count rim set that I want to swap out and put on my Pabst promo bike, WITH this vintage speedo. . .but, I don't want to REMOVE or alter spokes to make this gear drive fit. Just repeating the details of my initial post for any new readers.
Any others also have experience with this issue?
 

Attachments

  • DSCN1289.jpg
    DSCN1289.jpg
    2.2 MB · Views: 0
  • DSCN1294.jpg
    DSCN1294.jpg
    5.9 MB · Views: 0
Welcome George! I'm in Longmont with a few other members in the area.

I love it when experts tell me something isn't possible & accept it as a challenge! I like to have my cake & eat it too so go to great lengths & bloody knuckles to do so. I also enjoy using things on custom bikes for their unintended purpose.

This should be fairly easy with some time & pliers or medium size rock as suggested. Good luck!
 
Welcome! What about attaching a small rubber wheel that "rides" on the side of the tire
Hi Eric, I'm just now getting back to you, sorry! Thanks for responding to my post! Just wondering, I get the pliers part, but what do you mean about a medium size rock??? George
To refresh you memory, this was the post about how to attach the vintage old school speedo gear wheel to the high spoke count rim.
 
Exactly. Should be fairly easy to manipulate the tines/fingers to work for your application.
 

Latest posts

Back
Top