QR skewers

Schoie81

Morning guys,

We've just bought our son a new MTB for Christmas. It comes with standard axles and I just wondered, for ease of getting in and out of the car, is it possible to swap the axle out and fit a QR skewer, or would that mean a new wheel too? ie. will any wheel take a QR skewer?

cooldad

You should be able to fit hollow axles and QR skewers.

jimothy78

Yes, assuming the wheel hubs currently use "standard" cup-and-cone bearings (most cheaper and kids bike do) then you'll need to disassemble the existing set up and replace with something like this for the front axle and this for the rear axle. Before you buy, though, remove the wheels from the frame/fork and carefully measure the internal gap. The ones I've linked to are to fit the standard 100mm front, 135mm back of a typical mountain bike, but some designs vary, so check yours first.

You'll also need a set of quick release skewers and a pair of cone spanners to do the swap.

Schoie81

jimothy78 wrote:

Yes, assuming the wheel hubs currently use "standard" cup-and-cone bearings (most cheaper and kids bike do) then you'll need to disassemble the existing set up and replace with something like this for the front axle and this for the rear axle. Before you buy, though, remove the wheels from the frame/fork and carefully measure the internal gap. The ones I've linked to are to fit the standard 100mm front, 135mm back of a typical mountain bike, but some designs vary, so check yours first.

You'll also need a set of quick release skewers and a pair of cone spanners to do the swap.

Cheers. Its a 24" wheeled bike so just about the biggest 'kids' bike before they move onto the small adult bikes so I had hoped that the sizing would be the same as adult bikes, but yet, will measure before I buy. The bike hasn't been built yet, so figured it might be best to swap for a QR before I build it. Thanks for the tips!!

The Rookie

A word of caution, some hubs run axles with non standard threads in which case the cone/locknuts won't thread on properly and you can't do the change.

jimothy78

The Rookie wrote:

A word of caution, some hubs run axles with non standard threads in which case the cone/locknuts won't thread on properly and you can't do the change.

Surely if he buys the axles complete with bearings, cones and locknuts (as per my links above) then he'll be ok? Or have I missed something?

The Rookie

Yes, not all C+C bearinge use the same widths or diameters or even BB size (though it's pretty common on BB size), so cones from one hub are unlikley to be right in every dimension for another.