New wheel to wide...

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Bought new set of wheels for my garage sale find, a Columbia cruiser. Original wheels (rims) were all but gone. Super excited to get them, ripped off the original wheels and went to put on the new ones but the spindle (axle?) is to wide for the bike. I have only checked the front wheels though. Can the spindle/axle be replaced or am I screwed?
 
Too wide end to end? Or too large in diameter? For the first you may be able to remove a washer or spacer from between the inner bearing race and lock nut (if there is one), or spread the fork blades apart slightly. If the axle is too large in diameter, which is common putting more recent wheels on an old bike, you can file or grind the dropout openings to accommodate the larger axle. Don't overdo it though. Just enough for the axle to slide all the way in. You probably won't run into this problem, whichever it is, on the back unless you try to add gears to a 1-spd frame. :|
 
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