Too few threads on my fork - solutions?

[dirttorpedo]

I have a 70's vintage Favori/Ellis Briggs frame and fork gifted to me by a friend. When I recieved the bike i noticed that there was insufficient thread on the fork to mount a standard headset with lock washer (the headset it was equipped with has none). I wanted to replace the 70's dura ace brakes with Mafacs, but couldn't get them to work on the front because I needed a cable hanger. I gave up on that project after searching for a lower stack headset with no luck, but it still bothers me. Wondering what others have done in a similar solution. Taken the fork to a frame builder and had a new steerer installed? Something else?

Thanks in advance for sharing your experience / advice.

 

[juvela]

-----



your header is a little bit misleading in that it sounds like you need to add threads as in cutting some additional on an existing steerer...

...when what you really need a a bit more steerer length

you could take a measurement of how much steerer length you have for the complete headset and brake hanger

this is the usual way of going at it

some ordinary headsets with relatively small stack heights include:

Crown Nr. 2276 30.4mm

Stronglight P3 34.0mm

numerous french produced sets also have this stack height such as , Torevess, Gourgaud/Lightrace, Bardon, REWAX, RFG & others


-----

 

[bulgie]

Three other fixes for that issue:
(1) Mill the head tube shorter by the amount of steerer length you need. Almost all frames have some extra "meat" there you can spare.
(2) use a housing stop that bolts to the fork crown.


(3) use a housing stop that clamps to the stem quill (assuming it's a quill stem).


On second thought if you're switching from Dura-Ace, then you probablay don't have canti-bosses! Fix #2 is feasible only for canti brakes, without making one custom. You could probably fabricate one that would work with a Mafac centerpull, but I don't think the commercially-available ones will work.

I've made a couple that were integrated into a front rack, cool/trick but I've never seen one like that for sale, so this doesn't help if you're not already a rack-builder.

 

[Glug]

Tange Levin is fairly short stack height at 33.3mm and looks like vintage Campy.
Available new in 26.4 and 27.0mm for around £20.

And to save 2mm you can drill the stem the way they did it back in the good old days.
Some people frown on drilling stems which I understand, but it works for me.
Also avoids any flex in the hanger so the brakes work slightly better.



1961 Holdsworth Cyclone with Tange Levin CDS JIS when I was drilling the stem.

 

[dirttorpedo]

Tange Levin is fairly short stack height at 33.3mm and looks like vintage Campy.
Available new in 26.4 and 27.0mm for around £20.

And to save 2mm you can drill the stem the way they did it back in the good old days.
Some people frown on drilling stems which I understand, but it works for me.
Also avoids any flex in the hanger so the brakes work slightly better.

View attachment 970998

1961 Holdsworth Cyclone with Tange Levin CDS JIS when I was drilling the stem.

I would struggle with putting a hole in a nice vintage stem like that, but it makes a lot of sense

 

[dirttorpedo]

Three other fixes for that issue:
(1) Mill the head tube shorter by the amount of steerer length you need. Almost all frames have some extra "meat" there you can spare.
(2) use a housing stop that bolts to the fork crown.
View attachment 970972

(3) use a housing stop that clamps to the stem quill (assuming it's a quill stem).
View attachment 970973

On second thought if you're switching from Dura-Ace, then you probablay don't have canti-bosses! Fix #2 is feasible only for canti brakes, without making one custom. You could probably fabricate one that would work with a Mafac centerpull, but I don't think the commercially-available ones will work.

I've made a couple that were integrated into a front rack, cool/trick but I've never seen one like that for sale, so this doesn't help if you're not already a rack-builder.

View attachment 970974

I think I tried the fork crown housing stop, but it wasn't tall enough for the Mafac's. The clamp on quill stop would likely work. Interesting about the French HS stack heights - is it possible they built this to a French standard as I've had problems pressing in standard headset cups?

 

[Imlach]

you can always start a new thread on it