I didn't want to hyjack a Sears bike thread any more than I think I might have or could have so I moved it here. No big deal just trying to sort out the Sears Austrian made bike.
On my bike where the rear brake is mounted there is a made in Germany stamped into it. On the head badge there is a made in Austria (some say it's a Puch). Mine is a nice riding 1970 ladies thats missing 2nd gear. It is a Sears 3-speed like in this picture, model 503.21. Mine has a 70 stamped on it like it was a Sturmey-Archer hub. The gear changer marked as a Sears kinda looks like a S.A more than it looks like a Sachs or a Shimano. I'm only trying to solve the question, will a S.A. gear cluster slip into a Sears hub.
I googled the 503.21 hub and came up with a post from 02-06-06. They were giving the internal gear hubs a verbal bashing. Some good points and some bad. A guy called grolby defended the hubs and his was the Sears 503.21.
QUOTE:
"grolby 02-06-06, 01:35 PM
Is this "information" from your own personal experience? Or are you repeating someone else's questionable story that you read on the internet? This is a very real, well-known issue with the Sturmey-Archer AW, and one that I can also attest to from personal experience with this hub (actually a Sears 503.21, but they are the same thing). The AW is a wonderful hub, but the design of the adjustment and gear changing system is a serious weakness. It's simple, which is good - the things are nearly indestructible. Unfortunately, they also have a tendency to slowly go out of adjustment over time. If it isn't dialed in just right, the hub can suddenly slip out of gear for a moment. This can happen when you hit a bump, but I've found that it can also simply happen completely out of the blue, even with almost no pedaling or impact load on the hub. Standing up on one of these hubs is asking for trouble if you don't know for certain that it's adjusted perfectly - and after a week or two of regular riding, it won't be adjusted perfectly anymore! Fortunately, this is only a serious risk in the middle and high gears, so you can climb a hill out of the saddle if you are in low gear, but otherwise it's best to remain seated. In spite of that, I still think that the AW had largely proven the internal-gear concept to be sound more than fifty years ago (my hub is forty years old and works just fine). Modern hubs with more gears and a wider range have only improved the situation, and my next "serious" bicycle will be equipped with a Nexus-8 for this reason. The Rohloff 14-speed hub of course demonstrates that hub gears are even appropriate for high-performance applications like downhill MTB racing, and I think that these systems will only continue to improve as time goes on."
Until someone tries to slip a Sturmey-Archer gear cluster inside this Sears hub and finds out it's a bad move, I'm going to have to believe it can be done.
My 2cents is spent.
GL
On my bike where the rear brake is mounted there is a made in Germany stamped into it. On the head badge there is a made in Austria (some say it's a Puch). Mine is a nice riding 1970 ladies thats missing 2nd gear. It is a Sears 3-speed like in this picture, model 503.21. Mine has a 70 stamped on it like it was a Sturmey-Archer hub. The gear changer marked as a Sears kinda looks like a S.A more than it looks like a Sachs or a Shimano. I'm only trying to solve the question, will a S.A. gear cluster slip into a Sears hub.
I googled the 503.21 hub and came up with a post from 02-06-06. They were giving the internal gear hubs a verbal bashing. Some good points and some bad. A guy called grolby defended the hubs and his was the Sears 503.21.
QUOTE:
"grolby 02-06-06, 01:35 PM
Is this "information" from your own personal experience? Or are you repeating someone else's questionable story that you read on the internet? This is a very real, well-known issue with the Sturmey-Archer AW, and one that I can also attest to from personal experience with this hub (actually a Sears 503.21, but they are the same thing). The AW is a wonderful hub, but the design of the adjustment and gear changing system is a serious weakness. It's simple, which is good - the things are nearly indestructible. Unfortunately, they also have a tendency to slowly go out of adjustment over time. If it isn't dialed in just right, the hub can suddenly slip out of gear for a moment. This can happen when you hit a bump, but I've found that it can also simply happen completely out of the blue, even with almost no pedaling or impact load on the hub. Standing up on one of these hubs is asking for trouble if you don't know for certain that it's adjusted perfectly - and after a week or two of regular riding, it won't be adjusted perfectly anymore! Fortunately, this is only a serious risk in the middle and high gears, so you can climb a hill out of the saddle if you are in low gear, but otherwise it's best to remain seated. In spite of that, I still think that the AW had largely proven the internal-gear concept to be sound more than fifty years ago (my hub is forty years old and works just fine). Modern hubs with more gears and a wider range have only improved the situation, and my next "serious" bicycle will be equipped with a Nexus-8 for this reason. The Rohloff 14-speed hub of course demonstrates that hub gears are even appropriate for high-performance applications like downhill MTB racing, and I think that these systems will only continue to improve as time goes on."
Until someone tries to slip a Sturmey-Archer gear cluster inside this Sears hub and finds out it's a bad move, I'm going to have to believe it can be done.
My 2cents is spent.
GL