Secondhand Raleigh Junior Rigid MTB: lemon or worth a punt?

[12boy]

Great project....do you know what the frame is made of? V brakes, in my experience are more powerful than sidepulls, candies or calipers. They do require different brake levers. Unless you are going off road, you might consider non-knobby tires. I'd still use a large tire for the cushiness. My mtn bike has 2" tires with only a little tread and works fine on gravel and hard dirt and isn't much more work than my road bikes. Incredibly plush ride, though. Fat tires, run a little lower on air pressure with flexible sidewalls soak up a lot of bumps. As far as the bottom bracket goes, cartridge bottom brackets are not expensive. Were that mine, I would probably ditch the cranks in favor of a 48 chain ring and 13-32 sprockets which would give a range of 88 to 36 gear inches, and a friction shifter for simplicity. And, as said earlier, replace bars, stem and seat post with used Al parts. A pound or so off the bike, though, won't make it as sprightly as good low tread tires. If those decals have been clearcoated they won't be easy to remove. Good luck with this little jewel.

 

[Reynard]

Great project....do you know what the frame is made of? V brakes, in my experience are more powerful than sidepulls, candies or calipers. They do require different brake levers. Unless you are going off road, you might consider non-knobby tires. I'd still use a large tire for the cushiness. My mtn bike has 2" tires with only a little tread and works fine on gravel and hard dirt and isn't much more work than my road bikes. Incredibly plush ride, though. Fat tires, run a little lower on air pressure with flexible sidewalls soak up a lot of bumps. As far as the bottom bracket goes, cartridge bottom brackets are not expensive. Were that mine, I would probably ditch the cranks in favor of a 48 chain ring and 13-32 sprockets which would give a range of 88 to 36 gear inches, and a friction shifter for simplicity. And, as said earlier, replace bars, stem and seat post with used Al parts. A pound or so off the bike, though, won't make it as sprightly as good low tread tires. If those decals have been clearcoated they won't be easy to remove. Good luck with this little jewel.

It's a steel frame.

And yes, Schwalbe delta cruisers (or something else of that ilk) are being considered for tyres. That was always on the agenda as virtually all of my riding is on tarmac, with the odd bit of gravel. I have a spare set of 24" knobblies should I want to go off road.

Am limited on the back unfortunately as it's a freewheel, not a freehub, and 14-28 seems to be the standard flavour for freewheels.

Fortunately the decals are stickers, so they should just peel off. Glue smears I can deal with.

 

[DCBassman]

https://www.taylor-wheels.com/24inch-bike-rear-wheel-aluminium-for-cassette-7-10-speed-silver, @Reynard , just in case you want to go down this route. Quick cheap shipping too.

 

[Reynard]

https://www.taylor-wheels.com/24inch-bike-rear-wheel-aluminium-for-cassette-7-10-speed-silver, @Reynard , just in case you want to go down this route. Quick cheap shipping too.

Oooh! And they do a complete wheelset as well. AND they're quick release...

Only thing is that I'd have to cold set the rear (*wibble*) as those are 135mm axles and the ones I have are 130.

Maybe a nice Xmas pressie to myself though. (When I've become a little bit more mechanically competent. And confident.)

 

[All uphill]

A slight word of warning about changing the crankset. You may find that your existing bottom bracket will need changing as different chainset are often designed for different BB spindle lengths.

It can be an expensive minefield when you start changing components on a bike.

True.

I took a 1990s bike that cost £25, swapped the cantis for v brakes, swapped grip shift for levers and fitted a new crankset and bottom bracket, replaced the worn out rims. Total cost around £200 but it was done gradually and I then had a really competent tourer on which I have covered around 4000 miles.

Then I had it resprayed by Argos Racing Cycles.

Expensive or cheap? To me it's good value.

 

[raleighnut]

Oooh! And they do a complete wheelset as well. AND they're quick release...

Only thing is that I'd have to cold set the rear (*wibble*) as those are 135mm axles and the ones I have are 130.

Maybe a nice Xmas pressie to myself though. (When I've become a little bit more mechanically competent. And confident.)

Nah you can 'spring' the wheel in that 5mm just like with a 120 you can get a 126 in and with a 126 you can get a 130 in pretty easy. you'll also find after riding for a couple of years that the wheel has 'cold set' the frame for you so it'll now drop in without having to tweak the NDS stay at all.

 

[Reynard]

You guys are giving me plenty of food for thought. I think I'll end up in a similar place to @All uphill having paid the same amount for the bike, and likely to be ending up with a similar overall spend. On the flip side, if I was to buy a new bike to do what I want it to do, I'd have to spend considerably more.

Anyways, I finally managed to remove the junk freewheel, and finished cleaning the wheels. I reckon they came up reasonably well.

The hub casings are some kind of hard plastic, but they look fine. Can't see any obvious cracks or other damage. Likewise, no loose spokes, everything makes the same "twang."

I have a replacement 5-speed freewheel should it be needed. But this is how the wheel and freewheel sits in the rear dropouts. According to Sheldon, a 7-speed freewheel is about 6mm wider. (sorry, not cleaned the frame yet!)

And this is how the crankset and BB currently look. The chainrings are riveted together, so either they stay or they go completely - no halfway house here. The front mech is a Suntour btw. And am assuming, that with a bigger chainring, I will have to move the mech up to compensate.

I also cleaned up the 46T chainring and the cranks that were thrown into the deal for my Wiggins Chartres. Other than a minor scuff on one of the cranks, that lot came up good. The chainring is 130 BCD, so a decent start point.

And re the brakes, I already bought new blocks, but I will leave them in the packet for now. Should I decide to go with V brakes, they can always be returned / exchanged. I have 28 days to decide.

P.S. It was a splined freewheel. I couldn't tell because there was so much grot in there. And boy do they need some serious welly to remove.

 

[raleighnut]

You guys are giving me plenty of food for thought. I think I'll end up in a similar place to @All uphill having paid the same amount for the bike, and likely to be ending up with a similar overall spend. On the flip side, if I was to buy a new bike to do what I want it to do, I'd have to spend considerably more.

Anyways, I finally managed to remove the junk freewheel, and finished cleaning the wheels. I reckon they came up reasonably well.

View attachment 536382

The hub casings are some kind of hard plastic, but they look fine. Can't see any obvious cracks or other damage. Likewise, no loose spokes, everything makes the same "twang."

I have a replacement 5-speed freewheel should it be needed. But this is how the wheel and freewheel sits in the rear dropouts. According to Sheldon, a 7-speed freewheel is about 6mm wider. (sorry, not cleaned the frame yet!)

View attachment 536383

And this is how the crankset and BB currently look. The chainrings are riveted together, so either they stay or they go completely - no halfway house here. The front mech is a Suntour btw. And am assuming, that with a bigger chainring, I will have to move the mech up to compensate.

View attachment 536384

I also cleaned up the 46T chainring and the cranks that were thrown into the deal for my Wiggins Chartres. Other than a minor scuff on one of the cranks, that lot came up good. The chainring is 130 BCD, so a decent start point.

And re the brakes, I already bought new blocks, but I will leave them in the packet for now. Should I decide to go with V brakes, they can always be returned / exchanged. I have 28 days to decide.

P.S. It was a splined freewheel. I couldn't tell because there was so much grot in there. And boy do they need some serious welly to remove.

you'd get a 6 speed freewheel in there but a 7 would require a longer axle.

 

[Reynard]

you'd get a 6 speed freewheel in there but a 7 would require a longer axle.

I had a feeling that might be the case, as the spacing does look tight. So basically I'd need a 135mm through axle?

Was going to ask about axles anyway, as the rear has a slight wobble to it.

 

[Rusty Nails]

I had a feeling that might be the case, as the spacing does look tight. So basically I'd need a 135mm through axle?

Was going to ask about axles anyway, as the rear has a slight wobble to it.

If you fit a longer axle to take a wider freewheel you may well have to dish the wheel to get the rim to sit centrally between the stays.

Think everything through before deciding what you are going to do. Compromising on things might be necessary unless you are happy to spend a lot of money.

 

[Reynard]

If you fit a longer axle to take a wider freewheel you may well have to dish the wheel to get the rim to sit centrally between the stays.

Think everything through before deciding what you are going to do. Compromising on things might be necessary unless you are happy to spend a lot of money.

Yes, I'm aware that the wheel might need tweaking to get it to sit straight in the dropouts if a longer axle is fitted.

Right now though, I'm loving all the ideas coming in. But yes, I *WILL* have to sit down and think of where I want to go with this.

If I kept things simple, I could install the 5-speed freewheel from the Emmelle (the sprockets are exactly the same), keep the current crankset, clean everything up, touch up the paint, fit new cables, brake blocks, brake levers (can scavenge the metal ones off the Emmelle), mudguards and decent tyres and I will have an eminently useable winter bike.

Maybe just riding it for a while in its current setup will help concentrate the mind as to what's really needed.

 

[SkipdiverJohn]

If I kept things simple, I could install the 5-speed freewheel from the Emmelle (the sprockets are exactly the same), keep the current crankset, clean everything up, touch up the paint, fit new cables, brake blocks, brake levers (can scavenge the metal ones off the Emmelle), mudguards and decent tyres and I will have an eminently useable winter bike.

That's pretty much the course of action I would go for. When I get a project I tend to just give it a maintenance going over and a wipe down - but otherwise pretty much leave it alone. When I do make changes that I believe will be some sort of improvement, I always look to raid my pile of take-off donor parts first to see what I have in stock.
For example, my "best" Raleigh Pioneer, the 501 framed one, has acquired a set of roadster handlebars in place of the original MTB ones, and I saved a whole 1 1/2 ounces by replacing the steel seatpost with an alloy one. I've got a wheelset off a 99p Apollo on, as it was a quicker fix than getting the original rear wheel sufficiently true that I'd be completely happy with it. I've still got the original wheels, and nothing else has been changed apart from one brake lever (bought new for £7) and the Schwalbe tyres. It's proved to be a very versatile and comfortable machine, and still owes me a lot less than the price of a supermarket BSO even after getting two years service out of it to date.

 

[raleighnut]

I had a feeling that might be the case, as the spacing does look tight. So basically I'd need a 135mm through axle?

Was going to ask about axles anyway, as the rear has a slight wobble to it.

If you mean the freewheel oscilates slightly when you spin the wheel, 'they all do that' to a greater or lesser degree.As for the current set up you can tell Raleigh 'mackled' it a bit by fitting a full size nut to the axle instead of a half thickness cone locknut as is usual, this is a bodge I've used myself to

1) get a 126mm wide freewheel type wheel to fit nicely in a bike with 130mm spacing.*
2) enable a 7 speed freewheel to fit onto the axle with clearance to the dropout

BTW a 'through axle' is a completely different type of wheel to that fitted to yours, it's basically a long bolt that pushes all the way through the hub and screws into threads in the frame dropout. I suspect that the type you mean is a QR wheel (quick release) that has a long thin skewer through a hollow axle tube that you clamp with a lever instead of nuts.


View: https://youtu.be/4w6uqN_Pips


This should show the difference

* I suspect Raleigh did this as they had a whole shelf full of hubs that they needed to use up and fitting a thicker nut allowed this.

 

[raleighnut]

This picture shows a normal thin locknut on the right hand side of this QR axle.

EDIT - this is just a pictorial view of the order of assembly when rebuilding an axle, as you can see the 'locknut' is quite thin (2-3 mm) as opposed to a standard nut (5-6 mm) Raleigh could have fitted a thicker spacer as shown on the left hand side but it was probably cheaper to use a normal off the shelf nut to replace the locknut instead of making a bunch of 2-3 mm thicker spacers.

 

[Reynard]

That's pretty much the course of action I would go for. When I get a project I tend to just give it a maintenance going over and a wipe down - but otherwise pretty much leave it alone. When I do make changes that I believe will be some sort of improvement, I always look to raid my pile of take-off donor parts first to see what I have in stock.
For example, my "best" Raleigh Pioneer, the 501 framed one, has acquired a set of roadster handlebars in place of the original MTB ones, and I saved a whole 1 1/2 ounces by replacing the steel seatpost with an alloy one. I've got a wheelset off a 99p Apollo on, as it was a quicker fix than getting the original rear wheel sufficiently true that I'd be completely happy with it. I've still got the original wheels, and nothing else has been changed apart from one brake lever (bought new for £7) and the Schwalbe tyres. It's proved to be a very versatile and comfortable machine, and still owes me a lot less than the price of a supermarket BSO even after getting two years service out of it to date.

It'll certainly give me the time to get my head around what I really want to do at any rate. I've never stripped and rebuilt a bike before, so I'm learning on the fly. Act in haste, repent at leisure and all that... The one splurge that will definitely happen in short order are tyres - outside of a set of knobblies, I've nothing serviceable on hand.

Though I've only begun the strip down, so plans are a bit fluid depending on any gremlins that may manifest themselves.