Old school American Classic hubs

johntp said:

OK, I'm turning on the 'Way Back' machine. Does anyone have experience with the older American Classic hubs? By that I mean the hubs made before Shook took over most recently. I know they were pretty highly thought of...a local team rode them back in the 90's, but I'd love to have some more first hand info.
Thanks in advance.

John P. 🙂

What is your specific question? I have used some old AC hubs since the late 80's and may have some insights.

Basically, they are a light aluminum shell with pressed in cartridge bearings, hollow aluminum axles, and aluminum end caps that determined the hub spacing. Skewers were steel rods (I believe titanium was available) with aluminum end pieces, and a distinctive bent short round steel rod lever handle.

John M said:

What is your specific question? I have used some old AC hubs since the late 80's and may have some insights.

Basically, they are a light aluminum shell with pressed in cartridge bearings, hollow aluminum axles, and aluminum end caps that determined the hub spacing. Skewers were steel rods (I believe titanium was available) with aluminum end pieces, and a distinctive bent short round steel rod lever handle.

Thanks for the info. What's your impression of them as compared to Dt 240s,
White Industries or other comparable high quality hubs of today? Do you have any idea of the weights? Many thanks, John 🙂

johntp said:

Thanks for the info. What's your impression of them as compared to Dt 240s,
White Industries or other comparable high quality hubs of today? Do you have any idea of the weights? Many thanks, John 🙂

I would say that the overall quality was quite good (My bearings are still good after 10yrs+, but that is not with constant use as they were on race wheels that had lighter use). I did not use the old AC freehub rear, just the threaded hub for use with a freewheel, so a comparison to modern freehubs is not appropriate.

Old front standard is about 120g (with skewer) which is about the same as a current model Shimano DA or Campy Record front hub, and the rear threaded hub, about 180g (with skewer).

I've been using a set of AC hubs since 1996. The rear is the TI freehub. AC no longer makes this line of hubs, since they moved their headquarters to FL, and most (if not all ) of their stuff in now made in Taiwan. Back to the hubs, they are very light and virtually maintence free. I sent them back to AC in 2000 for a rebuild (new bearings) and had them laced up to some Velocity rims. They roll smooth and support the spokes well. I think that their current stuff is still pretty good, from what I have seen. I have only experienced the Hubset and the Classic seatpost, all of which were made in their then Ohio shop.

But, the DT's look sharp!

Longdaddy

John M said:

What is your specific question? I have used some old AC hubs since the late 80's and may have some insights.

Basically, they are a light aluminum shell with pressed in cartridge bearings, hollow aluminum axles, and aluminum end caps that determined the hub spacing. Skewers were steel rods (I believe titanium was available) with aluminum end pieces, and a distinctive bent short round steel rod lever handle.

Hmm ... caps that determined the hub spacing? Sounds like the solution to a pickle I'm in. I got my hands on a hybrid: ancient Zipp 440 rim, unlabeled American Classic hub, and one end cap, but not the other. American Classic only has one style of end cap that will fit, and it's a different thing altogether; it fits inside the axle, as opposed to the existing cap that fits over the end of the axle.

Do you have any idea where I could get my hands on a second over-sleeve style cap? The kicker is that after measuring it, if I were to get an identical cap, the overall combination would actually be a few mm too wide for my fork, forcing the tines outwards to make it fit. What would be ideal would be a matched pair of those caps that gave it a smaller overall axle length so that it wasn't putting the strain on my fork.

My alternative is to use a pair of the current end caps available from AC, file away the 1-mm lip on the hub side of the flange on the cap (kinda tricky and definitely tedious) and use those. Not my favorite plan. The final alternative is to create a technical drawing of the part I really need and have it fabricated at emachineshop or something like that, and I'd really rather not go there. However, even that's still viable, since I'm only $100 total into the wheel so far.

Ken Gant said:

Hmm ... caps that determined the hub spacing? Sounds like the solution to a pickle I'm in. I got my hands on a hybrid: ancient Zipp 440 rim, unlabeled American Classic hub, and one end cap, but not the other. American Classic only has one style of end cap that will fit, and it's a different thing altogether; it fits inside the axle, as opposed to the existing cap that fits over the end of the axle.

Do you have any idea where I could get my hands on a second over-sleeve style cap? The kicker is that after measuring it, if I were to get an identical cap, the overall combination would actually be a few mm too wide for my fork, forcing the tines outwards to make it fit. What would be ideal would be a matched pair of those caps that gave it a smaller overall axle length so that it wasn't putting the strain on my fork.

My alternative is to use a pair of the current end caps available from AC, file away the 1-mm lip on the hub side of the flange on the cap (kinda tricky and definitely tedious) and use those. Not my favorite plan. The final alternative is to create a technical drawing of the part I really need and have it fabricated at emachineshop or something like that, and I'd really rather not go there. However, even that's still viable, since I'm only $100 total into the wheel so far.

I can't help you on the end caps as mine are still in use--old over the sleeve type. I bet you have a rear one that is stuck on that front hub. I have a hub that was 126mm, but to space it to 130 mm required an asymmetric set of caps and redishing the wheel.

According to the AC website, old style end caps are still available for $10 each.

http://shopping.netsuite.com/s.nl/c.ACCT68588/it.A/id.213/.f?sc=2&category=2014

If you can't get it from AC, maybe you can find something--maybe a cheap old front hub on ebay that you could pirate the end caps from--it would probably be easier to just rebuild the rim around a different hub.

John M said:

I can't help you on the end caps as mine are still in use--old over the sleeve type. I bet you have a rear one that is stuck on that front hub. I have a hub that was 126mm, but to space it to 130 mm required an asymmetric set of caps and redishing the wheel.

I'm pretty sure that these were supposed to be front caps; the other one just seemed to disappear in shipping. Stuff happens.

John M said:

According to the AC website, old style end caps are still available for $10 each.

Been there, done that. 🙄 The cap I got was completely different, fitting inside the axle instead of around it. They told me that was what they have available. The fit within the axle is fine. The fit between the tines is too tight, and part of it is due to the small lip I refered to before. So I filed that off the one I got, and that got it close enough that I ordered another one so I could make a matching pair. It'll still be tighter than I'd like, but I think within reasonable bounds. Still, I hate to jury-rig stuff.

John M said:

If you can't get it from AC, maybe you can find something--maybe a cheap old front hub on ebay that you could pirate the end caps from--it would probably be easier to just rebuild the rim around a different hub.

You might be right. We'll see how the current experiment goes and take it from there.