Claud Butler - Carpenter - Vintage Bike - Wheel Help

[WhtANightmare]

Yeah. Would be best to re-cable that after a deep clean.

While I'm not totally familiar with this Huret gear set I can guess a lot from working on similar period Simplex stuff. Was a massive learning curve for me. The other gear cable is hidden inside the larger barrel in the left hand rear derailleur shifter. These are fiddly and borderline frustrating to work on. The French didn't bother with ferrules, instead they removed a portion of the outer plastic so that is normal for the rear derailleur.

It's imperative to organise your work with lots of containers, degreasing agents, metric open ended spanners, long nose pliers, and impossible to find ultra thin blade screwdrivers. Ideally you need the exploded diagrams too. It good to take photos as you go.

This front derailleur is the same period, but you have the cable pull version which will be a bit more complex:
https://www.retrobike.co.uk/threads/early-50s-la-gazelle-eau-de-nil--the-merlot-aftermath-.450638/post-3314973

The rear derailleur will be a fiddle - I would recommend only removing the pulley wheels for a service.

Your first task will be to break the chain really.

Thanks for the advice/tips @Woz . I'll try to assess the workload a bit more and check out the forum link you added. I'll see if I can do the brake cables initially and then check if I'll need to get someone more knowledgeable to do the gear cables etc.

 

[WhtANightmare]

Mini update, new spokes arrived and I have now fit them onto the wheel in the same manner as the regular spokes, I'll have to check the tension and truing of the wheel once I have got the freewheel on, the spacer and checked that it's all fitting as it should

 

[WhtANightmare]

Okay, just as one thing is solved anothe thing is found.

It appears as though when the freewheel is tightened onto the hub, the freewheel seems to bind against the spokes meaning it no longer spins freely. I am assuming the freewheel should be tight up against the hub as once breaking is applied it would tighten this in this regard anyways. Does this mean that the freewheel I got is actually incompatible with the hub? Or is there potentially a simple solution that I am missing?

 

[Guinessisgoodforyou]

Okay, just as one thing is solved anothe thing is found.

It appears as though when the freewheel is tightened onto the hub, the freewheel seems to bind against the spokes meaning it no longer spins freely. I am assuming the freewheel should be tight up against the hub as once breaking is applied it would tighten this in this regard anyways. Does this mean that the freewheel I got is actually incompatible with the hub? Or is there potentially a simple solution that I am missing?

Put a spacer on the hub before you screw the freewheel on.

 

[Guinessisgoodforyou]

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[WhtANightmare]

Put a spacer on the hub before you screw the freewheel on.

Thanks @Guinessisgoodforyou that is hugely appreciated quick response. And thank you for making it the simple solution I was hoping for lol

 

[Guinessisgoodforyou]

Thanks @Guinessisgoodforyou that is hugely appreciated quick response. And thank you for making it the simple solution I was hoping for lol

Double check dimensions, it should be fine.

 

[WhtANightmare]

Double check dimensions, it should be fine.

Seems in amongst the old removed freewheel I had a spacer to use, so thankfully that has resolved the issue. Thanks @Guinessisgoodforyou you've been keeping me fairly sane through this process lol

 

[WhtANightmare]

Little update, brake and gear cables have all been changed (ended up getting some help for the gear cables) and the bike is technically rideable. Although the one thing at the moment is the huret gear levers seem to have an issue where if you push or pull them the whole mechanism seems to move with the lever (and as such both levers more at the same time too) so can't change gears at the moment .

As I didn't change the cable myself I'm not sure what exactly they did, so don't know the the cable end is binding (if they didn't file it down properly) in the mechanism, or maybe it needs greasing, tightening etc not too sure. But it's getting there.

The person that did the gear cables cable tied them to the frame which whilst better than the sticky tape that was previously used isn't ideal so at some point I might try to get some metal cable clips.

Any suggestion on what could cause the huret gear lever mechanism to be causing issues would be great appreciated, if not I might have to just take the front cover of the mechanism off and see if there is anything amiss.

 

[Guinessisgoodforyou]

Without being there to look I have no idea.