Front axle on my 39/40 Elgin

[RivNut]

Last Saturday I started cleaning up the old Elgin that I acquired back in January. When I took the front wheel off, it required a 15mm socket to get the axle nuts off. The bearing cone also required the 15mm socket. Has anyone else experienced this anomaly? All the other nuts and bolts on the bike are SAE. I had another front axle so I thought that I'd just use it so everything on the bike would be SAE. But I quickly found out that the front axle bearing retainer has about half the bearings but each ball is twice as large as standard bearings. Did Elgin do anything weird in the late 30's or early 40's?

Thanks in advance for any insights.

Ed

 

[Dizzle Problems]

Are you certain the hub is original to the bike?
Any pictures?

 

[RivNut]

Pretty sure. It's one of Elgin's air cooled units.

 

[Dizzle Problems]

Strange. Wonder if the axle had been swapped at one point.

 

[RivNut]

That's about all that I can think of. But the cone on the axle has a different profile than any I've seem before. The retainer cage has five 1/4" bearings in it. It's wide so the race in the axle is deep. It's weird but it all fits together. A swap is the only thing I can figure out. It works well but the OCD in me wants all of the bolts and nuts to be SAE.

 

[RivNut]

Here are a couple of pictures of the axle assembly, all metric except for the retainer bearings, and the hub laced to the rim.

 

[RivNut]

I'm back on my own thread again with a different question. Can anyone tell me if these Elgin front hubs used the New Departure WL front axle assembly? I've found a new one that "looks" similar but have yet to do any comparative measurements. It will be a lot easier to say "Yeah, that's the one" rather than try to trade emails with a bunch of measurements.

Thanks again, Ed

 

[deorman]

Answer to first question = 19/32". Not kidding.

 

[RivNut]

19/32" at what place?

Here are some measurements that I got.

 

[deorman]

19/32" at what place?

The wrench for the nuts.

 

[RivNut]

Hmmmm. So it's possible that the front axle that's in the front hub is original. I'll have to take another look at the axle and see if I can figure out what the thread pitch is.

Thanks,

 

[GuitarlCarl]

@deorman is right.
19/32 fits a lot of axle nuts on older bikes...
It's my most used wrench..

Carl.

Sent from the edge of an alternate universe...

 

[Phil Fink]

I thought that most bike parts took metric wrenches since about the 1800's; (except for "Crescent" bicycles). I guess it helps if one has a set that goes to the 32nd or 64th of an inch.

 

[deorman]

SAE (Imperial) and metric fasteners have often been intentionally made in crossover tool sizes. Those old U.S. made bikes are in fact fitted with Imperial tool fasteners. Just to add to the confusion, the British also made Imperial based Whitworth and BSF fasteners, with different thread profiles, and some U.S. manufacturers prior to WW2 made their own proprietary threads.

 

[RivNut]

Luckily, i have at least two of each sized 6", 8", and 10" Crescent wrenches, and one whopper 18". Metric, Imperial, whatever; I've got a knuckle buster to fit. Thanks to everyone for their input.

 

[RivNut]

Got tired of having to dig out the metric sockets so I wrote 19/32 on a piece of masking tape, stuck in in with the other SAE sockets. Back to one tool chest.