Fat Coker Hub

This was my Coker as of January 2001.  I was fairly concerned about tacoing the rim.  To make the wheel stronger, I added a widened Suzue hub.  The frame is actually a 24" United frame with 7" of 1" diameter tubing added to each side.  Bicycle Euro 6" aluminum cranks, platform pedals, carbon fiber seat base, prototype handlebar.

The original Coker hub  is the narrowest I've seen, at 2.25 in. between flanges.   This widened Suzue hub is 4.37 in. between flanges.


Widening the hub was less trouble than I planned on.  Here's what I did:

1.  Cut a Suzue hub in half with an abrasive cutting wheel, like on a chop saw.
2.  Ground off the forging seams.  Also ground a bit of a chamfer on the cut ends. (If I did it again, I would use a lathe to turn the center section down to 5/8")
3.  Got a piece of 5/8" i.d. seamless tubing about 3.8 inches long.
4.  Pressed each half of the Suzue hub into the 5/8" tubing
5.  Put crank arms on, and used them to rotate the two halves into correct 180 degrees apart position.
6.  Welded the 5/8" tubing to each axle half, being careful not to put too much heat into the already heat treated axle. 
7.  Took  the wheel apart and put it back together with the widened hub.

I also painted the weld area black to prevent rust