Rainy, dark winters are the perfect time to hunker down and disassemble something.  Since I’ve been wanting to know more about servicing SA 3 speed hubs, last winter I decided to take the plunge, having two potential candidates in my parts bins:  a 1974 model and one from 1978.

I knew I needed to do more than just endlessly stare at this parts schematic.  Fortunately, Glenn’s Complete Bicycle Manual dedicates 16 pages to the overhaul process.  And, I found especially helpful the online repair guides from Sutherland’s (courtesy of the Sheldon Brown site) and from Sturmey Archer (courtesy of Tony Hadland’s site).  The Sheldon Brown site also has detailed instructions as well as some helpful illustrations.

Before going down this rabbit hole, I also consulted several video guides and read a lot of interesting commentary regarding the “right” way to service these hubs.  RJ the Bike Guy’s video turned out to be the most practical and helpful.

First up was selecting which hub I wanted to overhaul.  I ended up choosing the earlier model due to its differently shaped slot on the “ball ring” which is a threaded part that connects the innards to the hub shell.  To loosen the ring you use a drift punch and hammer, then tap away counter-clockwise until the ball ring gives.  Unfortunately, newer models of the AW hub have ball ring slots which are more rounded and designed to take a proprietary spanner tool (which appears to no longer exist except perhaps in Wonderland).  After whacking away at the newer 1978 hub, I gave up and switched to the older 1974 model and had the ball ring loosened right away.  It’s also much easier to loosen the ball ring if you have a hub which is attached to a wheel.

But, before doing that you need to remove the outer nuts and washers and the cog which is held in place with a clip, as shown above.  Immediately after that you remove the left hand side locknut, washer, and cone, but leave the right hand assembly in place.  It’s important to keep all the parts in proper order as you remove them – I used zip-ties for this purpose.  It’s also important to note the orientation of all washers, and to make sure that the cog is re-installed correctly with its spacers and dished side as originally configured.

Once you unscrew the ball ring, the whole hub assembly comes out of the hub shell, intact.  Inside the hub shell you can see the ratchets at the bottom along with the left hand side set of bearings, held in a clip.   From there, you can remove the bearings from the left hand side of the hub shell (first you remove the “upside down dust cap”) and then set the hub shell aside.  Why are the dust caps upside down?  One site I consulted suggested that the troughs are meant to be filled with water proof grease, to further seal the hub from the elements.

After the driver is removed on the right hand side, which is done by removing the cone, the hub internals come apart in stages. The above photos document the series of steps to remove the clutch spring, gear ring, clutch assembly, and planet cage assembly.  You’ll note both the gear ring and the planet cage assembly have pawls.  The final photo above depicts the sun gear, which is permanently affixed to the axle.

For cleaning and reassembly, I found it easiest to tackle each sub-assembly separately.  The above photo shows, from top left to bottom right:  the planet cage, the clutch assembly, the driver, gear ring, and the ball ring.

The ball ring is aptly named – its a ring of ball bearings.  Studying the instructions gave me a lot of pause though, with confusing references to the ball ring having a “two thread start” and therefore meaning that in reassembly you might start the threading on a different thread than as it was originally threaded which could cause the wheel to be out of dish.  After doing a lot of reading about this, I came to the conclusion that this is of no importance to me, since my hub has no rim attached.

Unfortunately, at this point in my life I became very busy at work and didn’t get back to this project for many months!  When it came time for re-assembly, after having cleaned all the parts with a citrus cleaner, alcohol, and brass brush (I do not use toxic cleaners that can’t be safely disposed of), my brain needed a refresher course.  And, as I looked at the little planet gears I realized that I didn’t really properly understand how these hubs work, so I did some further research.

I found some answers by watching this interesting video, which depicts how the gears are engaged in this 3 speed hub. This is really different from how I thought these hubs worked.  I had imagined that each planetary gear circulating around the sun gear was of a different size (an idea I developed in childhood), and that’s what created the different gear ratios, much like a derailleur shifting through different sized cogs.  How wrong can you be!  Learning the importance of the clutch position has made me much more careful about shifting when I’m riding bikes equipped with internal hubs, remembering to lighten up on the pedals for each shift.

Meanwhile, back to the torture of the reassembly process:  things went fine until I tried to reassemble the pawls and pawl springs in the planet cage.  I dutifully lubricated the pins with Phil’s Tenacious Oil (as recommended by various mechanics), but when it came time to put the pawls and their tiny springs back in I had trouble getting them assembled correctly.  The pawl springs are so small that I actually “lost” them a few times only to realize that they were still right there on my work table, just basically invisible.  It’s also important to orient the pawls correctly, taking note of the slight beveling on one side.  I proceeded on with re-assembly, following carefully the instructions from Sutherland’s and from RJ the Bike Guy’s video.

After proceeding through the re-assembly of each of the subassembly, finally the hub is back together.  I was initially unhappy with the cone adjustment, which was a relatively easy fix.  The Sheldon Brown site has a good discussion of this process.  There should be a tiny bit of free-play in the hub if it is properly adjusted, and generally speaking, the adjustment should be made from the left hand side.  Once the cone adjustment was right, I also checked to see that the indicator spindle moved freely, so that the 3 gears can be engaged.  The true test will be to build the hub into a wheel and install it into a bike, but I’ll save that project for another rainy winter day.  And, now I will feel more confident overhauling the SA hubs on the two bikes I own which feature these hubs:  a 1950 Raleigh Sports Tourist, and a 1966 Sears/Puch.  I’ve gained a lot of useful knowledge and look forward to expanding on that.