Bought a 1980's raleigh roadie to practice my maintenance skills on, but none of my spanners fit the nuts. Guessing the newer spanners are metric and the older bike imperial – anyone gots any suggestions where I might get some?

Use an adjustable.

Halfords.

Tried an adjustable but the bike's been in someones shed for ages and a lot of it's pretty stiff.

Hadn't thought of halfords (doesn't spring to mind as local branch staff are usually rubbish) but will have a look see

Car boot sales are usually awash with imperial tools for next to nowt.

Or Amazon – http://www.amazon.co.uk/Draper-30765-Imperial-Combination-Spanner/dp/B001FCSXII/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&s=diy&qid=1274971883&sr=8-7

Local old fashioned hardware store. Theres one a minutes walk away and i'll bet they have a set of imperial combi spanners!

try local scrap yards, we have loads of the bloody things come in to ours.

Not being funny but I'd just practise on your "good" bike if your practice bike is seized up.

Thanks guys

Practise isn't totally seized – got on OK with the adjustable but wasn't ideal.

Will practise on the good bikes once I feel a bit more confident but the whole idea of getting this old rattler was that if I screwed anything up with it it was no big loss and the good bikes are still ready for the weekend

Machine Mart have imperial spanner sets for next to nowt. Not one for cheap tools but the amount I use imperial means I'm not gonna spend on em. They're just handy to have.

toab are you on Orkney?

I have no doubt that spannering an old bike with help with a general feel of how things work and how tight you can do things up….. but comparing modern kit with that Raleigh is like night and day. Almost everything now comes apart with either a metric Allen key, or it's a specialist tool. The only thing I can think of (off the top of my head…. watch the posts flood in 😉 that uses a 'spanner' now is pedals, and even then you're better off using a proper pedal wrench rather than a standard open-end spanner.

Use an adjustable.

We once had someone in the shop asking if the adjustable he'd just bought would fit imperial bolts or if it was a metric adjustable. Sadly, he wasn't being funny…

Don't use an adjustable, even good ones are rubbish.

And there's plenty of stuff on old bikes that need tightening beyond what an adjustable is good for – seatclamps for a start.

There are several imperial thread sizes with different spanners to suit.

I would guess that most on a bike are Cycle thread but dim and distant memory of when I was young is that there can be differing types on one bike, but I'm happy to be corrected on that.

Don't use an adjustable, even good ones are rubbish

Quite right. Use a Stilson Pipe Wrench 😉

1/4 & 3/16 whitworth

Imperial spanners?? no such thing, It will either BSF/Witworth/BCT or AF/AC. I'm not helping am I 🙂

go on ebay,search vintage bike parts/spanners and buy a bone spanner and flat raleigh spanner,there usually couple of quid each,i got a box full of old bicycle spanners at a jumble sale for £2!, ideal for all the old bikes 😮
look through here for a pic of the type of spanners you need

toab – Member
Bought a 1980's raleigh roadie to practice my maintenance skills on

If you try to replace the BB, the Raleigh used to have a different thread. (But I'm thinking 1950s)

You can fix it by running the thread tool through it. Later bikes use the BSA thread.

toab – Member
Bought a 1980's raleigh roadie to practice my maintenance skills on

If you try to replace the BB, the Raleigh used to have a different thread. (But I'm thinking 1950s)

You can fix it by running the thread tool through it. Later bikes use the BSA thread. the old longtime running bike shops can also sell you a square taper conversion that fits these old threads allowing any square taper crankset to be fitted to what was a cotterpin set up…i have one in a 1960s bike but its not been out so i dont know what make it is!

Thanks guys – I've got a much better idea of where to look and what I'm looking for now.

cynic-al – no, I'm not on Orkney.