Rear Forks out by 5mm

[nick85]

Hi all, hoping for some advice on this as I can't find anything online.

I have a late 80s Peugeot road bike recently acquired off Gumtree.... The sort of bike that has been a bit unloved, and someone has patched it up to make it look rideable.

The rear forks are approx 5mm larger than the rear axel. When I got it there were some make do bits of metal acting as spacers not attached to the axel, just floating on the quick release. When compressing with the quick release, I can close this 5mm gap, and either side of the axel sits within the drop outs and I get a tight compression and a centred wheel.

Is this adequate, or is this putting too much pressure on the quick release? (My guess is it probably is too much pressure)

What are my options? Can I squash the rear forks? Do I need a longer axel to fit, and add spacers or a wider cassette?

[find_bruce]

Hi Nick, welcome outside.

You don't state what the spacing is for your axle & bike. As always the much missed Sheldon is your friend.

I am going to take an educated guess that either

1) your frame is for 6 / 7 speed (126 mm) & you have a 5 speed axle or
2) A previous owner has cold set the frame to space it at 130mm so they can fit a 8, 9 or 10 speed axle

It seems to me that (2) is most likely.

It is unlikely to make any difference to the durability of the frame. If it bothers you, it would be a simple matter to cold set the frame back to the original spacing.

[nick85]

Nice one, thanks Bruce! I think (2) sounds right yeah. I was chatting with a couple experienced bike mechanics in stores... pedantic ones, and they're saying no worries about the extra load/stress that the spacing is causing.... so I'm good to go! Thanks for the thoughts though