My 1953 tele/rigid B31 (later made into a B33) has a 19x3.50 tyre on the rear. When I bought the bike it had a home-botched rear spindle with a variety of spacers. I've replaced this with the proper spindle and snail cams. This fits into the frame very well, but the tyre is now catching on the near-side lower front of the mudguard, where it curves in to give the chain guard clearance. The snail cams ensure that the wheel is located properly so it's definitely straight.
So, the question is, did the B33 have a wider mudguard to give clearance for the 3.50 tyre in comparison to the B31 with the 3.25 tyre? If my bike still has the B31 mudguard, would this explain the issue?
Thanks for any thoughts. Mark.
Hello Mark, From the parts list for this model/year it appears that the same rear mudguard fitted to both B31 and 33.. Are you sure that the rim offset is correct? HTH
Thanks Ian, the next question is: does anyone know the correct offset of the rim on the rear wheel? I wonder if this is why the bodged spacers were fitted to the spindle...
B31 rigid rear wheel, part 65 6285 offset given as 2 7/8 inch from centre line of rim to centre line of chainwheel
Excellent, thanks Julian.
Confession time: I checked the rim offset which was as Julian said. Then I realised that I'd put the spindle locknut on the wrong side, so the whole wheel assembly was pushed over to the left! We now have a nicely spinning wheel.
I've just had a look at the standard diagram of the rear hub/spindle assembly, and it turns out I had got the various nuts etc correctly on the spindle as per the diagram, with the lock nut on the opposite side to the brake drum. That's why the wheel was offset from the frame.
Could someone confirm that on the drum side, working outwards, you should have the bearing adjusting nut, then the brake plate, then the locknut and then the snail cam adjuster?
Thanks for any advice, Mark.