My poor Lafree Twist's SRAM P5 has departed this life. After years of extreme abuse hauling heavy loads on one and even two trailers at a time, one of the gear teeth decided it had had enough and made a break for freedom. Unfortunately it paused to socialise with the others on it's way out, there was an almighty punch up at the end of which there were more teeth scattered around than at the end of the day in an NHS dentist's surgery.
Never mind, by good fortune our friends at Wiggle Cycle were running a special offer on a new production batch of P5s due in, and adding a 10% discount at the time, a price of £84, £25 less than Fisher Outdoor. With the innards of that transferred the bike is already hard at work again.
SRAM owners such as Lafree Comfort users might like to note two small changes that have appeared since my original hub was purchased. One is a taper on the left hand inner block of the mechanism that doesn't affect us. The other change is to the right hand end of the spindle which might. The earlier design had a plain right hand spindle on which the clickbox thumb screw clamped, holding by friction. The newer design has a spindle with a groove in the end to positively locate the thumb screw end in a precise position.
Unfortunately this change stops the older clickbox in a position where the thumb screw locks on the outer actuator tube, resulting in only three change positions on the control and middle gear (direct drive) only in any position. A new latest clickbox comes as a complete unit with control and cable at another £38 typically, but that can be avoided by a simple expedient.
The old clickbox spindle recess has a step in it's plastic body which needs to be further recessed. Holding a 3/8" drill bit in a vice, mole wrench or similar grippers, the clickbox is turned against it's cutting edge until the drill tip just cuts the plastic to the surface of the outer steel actuator pawl of the pair that's visible inside the recess. That now permits the clickbox to be fully engaged on the spindle with the thumb screw engaging in the groove at the spindle end.
I've no idea when the change was introduced, but if when you undo the thumbscrew and remove the clickbox you see a groove on the end of the spindle, you already have the newer version. Mechanically in operational terms, the two versions are identical.
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Never mind, by good fortune our friends at Wiggle Cycle were running a special offer on a new production batch of P5s due in, and adding a 10% discount at the time, a price of £84, £25 less than Fisher Outdoor. With the innards of that transferred the bike is already hard at work again.
SRAM owners such as Lafree Comfort users might like to note two small changes that have appeared since my original hub was purchased. One is a taper on the left hand inner block of the mechanism that doesn't affect us. The other change is to the right hand end of the spindle which might. The earlier design had a plain right hand spindle on which the clickbox thumb screw clamped, holding by friction. The newer design has a spindle with a groove in the end to positively locate the thumb screw end in a precise position.
Unfortunately this change stops the older clickbox in a position where the thumb screw locks on the outer actuator tube, resulting in only three change positions on the control and middle gear (direct drive) only in any position. A new latest clickbox comes as a complete unit with control and cable at another £38 typically, but that can be avoided by a simple expedient.
The old clickbox spindle recess has a step in it's plastic body which needs to be further recessed. Holding a 3/8" drill bit in a vice, mole wrench or similar grippers, the clickbox is turned against it's cutting edge until the drill tip just cuts the plastic to the surface of the outer steel actuator pawl of the pair that's visible inside the recess. That now permits the clickbox to be fully engaged on the spindle with the thumb screw engaging in the groove at the spindle end.
I've no idea when the change was introduced, but if when you undo the thumbscrew and remove the clickbox you see a groove on the end of the spindle, you already have the newer version. Mechanically in operational terms, the two versions are identical.
.
Last edited:
NIGEL.
