Anyone understand Sturmey Archer gears?

Darius_Jedburgh
Darius_Jedburgh Posts: 675
edited October 2019 in Workshop
Wifey has a Pashley trike with three speed SA gears. She says they are not working properly but as she's nowhere near technical she can't describe accurately what is or isn't going on. I can't ride the thing but she expects me to fix it.

I've no experience with these gears and apart from blindly fiddling with the tension adjuster wouldn't know where to start.

Anyone on here know anything about these gears and how to twiddle them?

Comments

  • Cheers.
  • Adjust the tension till the metal rod just starts to appear when in the second gear.

    Look at the chain on the hub and pull out by hand to see what i mean by metal rod.

    Other issues include non smooth rotationnof cranks, remove wheel, does the cog wobble? Adjust the drive side cone. Is the cog worn? Remove circlip and replace.

    There isnt much more to it. Until you decide to service the hub and then id be prepred to sit at the kitchen table for some time
  • Most sa I ever rode had a broken cable and no money to replace, so just pulled the chain out through the axle to get the 2nd gear a put a safety pin through the link to hold in place.
  • Should be the same hub as the Brompton 3 speed. Typically you have too much tension or not enough tension in the cable. So you can adjust it by operating the connector with the locknut thing. If it doesn't go into the easier gears, then you need more tension, if it doesn't go into the big gear, then you need less tension.

    Select the big gear, Undo the locknut, which hopefully it's not seized, then screw or unscrew the connector to add or remove tension in the cable, then do up the locknut again
    left the forum March 2023
  • Thanks guys. Seems like gear lever is furbared. It just won't hold any position other than top gear so I've ordered a new one. Advice re set up will be useful. As a last resort I'll do the middle gear bodge.