New Sturmey Archer 3-speed with plastic cover etc.

[DHockham]

My partner bought a brand new Raleigh Caprice last year. This has a Sturmey 3-speed gear, but unlike any other I have ever seen this has some extra bits with it - a long metal plate with a pulley for the gear-change chain to run over, and a plastic cover for this. (I would post a photo, but as a newcomer to the forum I'm not allowed to.)

My question is: how do I reassemble this? I had to take it apart last autumn: my partner has asthma and can only ride out of doors during the summer months; so she wanted the bike mounted on a trainer, which entailed disconnecting the gear cable from the hub. Of course, I thought I would remember how everything was arranged, but now I need to reassemble it I can't figure it out at all.

I've looked at the Raleigh and Sturmey Archer sites, and searched through 17 pages of posts on this forum, but I can't find any reference to this type of gear accessory.

 

[Spinney]

Hi, and welcome to cyclechat

I'm afraid I have no idea about your problem, but it did occur to me that if you could post a photo or two it might help the more knowledgeable to assist you.

 

[mjr]

unlike any other I have ever seen this has some extra bits with it - a long metal plate with a pulley for the gear-change chain to run over, and a plastic cover for this

I don't recognise that description but if it's anything like similar pulleys, that's just to keep the gear cable off the frame.

Routing a gear cable is often different on each bike but as long as you can get it from the shifter to the toggle chain under tension, it should work. On one of my bikes, it runs in an outer to a clamp/stop on the frame roughly where a downtube shifter would be, then bare to a pulley wheel near the bottom of the downtube, behind the chainring and over the chainstay to the toggle chain clamp. On another, it's simply in an outer almost the whole way and banded onto the downtube and chainstay where it emerges to connect to the toggle.

 

[Milkfloat]

Does this help?

The black plastic then covers the gear chain.

 

[mjr]

Does this help?

The black plastic then covers the gear chain.

So, just thread the cable through the cover before attaching it to the clamp, then slide it along and hook it over the end of the axle when all the setup's done?

Seems like a bigger version of the plastic "turret" that covers many SA axle nuts, but it covers the clamp too, which I guess stops anything snagging on that.

 

[Milkfloat]

So, just thread the cable through the cover before attaching it to the clamp, then slide it along and hook it over the end of the axle when all the setup's done?

Seems like a bigger version of the plastic "turret" that covers many SA axle nuts, but it covers the clamp too, which I guess stops anything snagging on that.

That is what it looks like. I just grabbed images from the net. I guess you thread it through to make sure you don't lose it when inevitably you knock it off.