Upgrading Peugeot Wheels

Tom*

Ok, so my girlfriend has asked me to sort out her nice old peugeot, its wheels are pretty shot and so I started to look into getting new ones. I then realised I may as well change out the knackered 5 speed freehub and chain too. Now I'm trying to figure out where to buy wheels to which I can fit a 5 speed freehub? As I can't seem to find much information on this. Obviously new modern wheels come with the ability to fit a cassette but as I understand it this is different to a freehub. We borrowed a wheel from one of her housemates bikes to see how it would fit and because it had a larger 8 speed cassette, I couldn't fit it at all!

Just wondered if someone could shed some light and let me know what my options are. Whatever is most simple! If I can fit a 6/7 speed cassette on some modern wheels that would be just as good, but I'm not sure whether it would fit/the ins and outs of making it fit.

Thanks

JayKosta

If the hubs are still useable, you could build new wheels with them.

Or, you can look for used bikes with good wheels - just make sure it has a 5-speed freewheel, and the spacing should work fine (a 6-speed is a little wider, but it 'might' work).

Jay Kosta
Endwell NY USA

ugo.santalucia

You can buy some on E-bay or you can rebuild on the existing hubs... in the days they didn't bother with low quality, so chances are the hubs are still good and usable.
To make rebuilding cheap you'll have to do it yourself, otherwise you are looking at 50 pounds labour on top of the cost of new spokes and rims. There are cheap and good quality rims around for 20 pounds each or so.

If you buy wheels, you need to measure your dropout distance... likely to be 126 or even 120 mm

Mindermast

What exactly do you mean by "pretty shot"? Wobbly wheels can be trued, hubs cleaned, re-greased and adjusted, alloy rims polished. Spokes can be polished too, or replaced, depending on their condition. If the rest of the bike is in good condition, it is worth paying your LBS for this. Technically, this is the easiest solution, unless hubs or rims are seriously worn, and it is not outrageously expensive either. And it should last for quite a while.

Alternatively, you can check ebay and the likes for a good used set of wheels of that period (measurements!!!).

There are hubs for the old style cogsets and I am pretty sure that you can find one with the correct width as well. So you could get new wheels built, also with new rims and spokes - most probably you will need new spokes because of the different hub, different rim and therefore different resulting spoke length. But this is more expensive than fixing the old wheels and it will change the character of the bike.

You could upgrade to 9-speed or even 10-speed, but this will trigger a mechanical domino effect, many other parts will have to be exchanged too. If you cannot do this by yourself, or stick to very cheap low-quality components, a new bike might be cheaper...

I think, I would examin the rims for real bends in the material (not just deformations from wrong spoke tension), then try to polish one and, if that works, have the hubs checked and go for the first alternative, if possible.

PS: Just out of interest, are the tyres tubulars (tyre is a hose with built in tube) or clinchers (tyre u-shaped, tube separate)?