Need a bit of advice.

I'm after an old road hack to restore to a half decent SS roadie for commuting (with a view to potentially making it fixed in future if I'm feeling brave).

Most old hacks come with rear wheels with freewheels rather than freehubs and cassettes. Are singlespeed freewheels easy enough to get hold of and if so what kind would I need? I'd be looking to strip a geared bike down (probably) so the spacing will likely be standard.
Another thing is dropouts, I'm assuming forward facing slotted dropouts will be easy enough to get a decent tension in the chain?

I think that's about all I need for the moment. Any help would be much appreciated.

Cheers

Bit confused, but maybe thats just the beer?

Most road hubs I've met are like mountain bike hubs, in that the free wheel is built into the hub and the cassette slides on and is locked in place by splines and a lockring. This is easy to get round with a conversion kit by the likes of DMR/Gusset etc (charlie the bike monger will sort you out there) effectivley its a load of spacers and a small chain ring with a lock ring holding it all in place.

Fixxy wheels have no free wheel in the hub, and are basically just like front hubs, but with a small threaded area onto which you can screw a chain ring and lock ring, or for free wheel capabilities a BMX style free wheel will also screw on.

Forward facing dropouts don't give as much adjustment as you'd hope, but sometimes its enough, but I'd recommend getting some chain tugs on there as every time I put any power through the cranks, it pulled the front wheel forward on my old bike.

If you're building a SS/Fixed hack bike then buy a bike with track ends. You'll pay a premium because of all the posers, but there is plenty out there. this will make it much easier for the type of bike you wish to build. That said, you can get a decent steel road bike with gears for very little money, cheap and easy to maintain and goes fast! (my reynolds steel, dura ace equipped peugeot is for sale if you're interested (£170)

if you're taking off the "free cassette" on the old wheel and replacing it with a free wheel single sprocket then you'll probably need to re dish the rim and space the hub over a bit to get the correct chain alignment.

if you're going to fixie it then the same applies but remember that a screw on fixed cog will try and unscrew itself when you slow down the cranks with your legs. not so much of a problem if you keep the brakes fitted though.

check out london fixed gear or somewhere similar for more advice.

have fun.

get a half link chain to help with limited tension adjustment.

A bmx freewheel should hopefully just thread on?

https://www.customriders.com/prodshow.asp?prodid=2396&cat=0&parent=0&sid=3

Dunno if the threads are the same size though.

I ought an old road bike sometime last year and had it converted into a singlespeed for £40 all parts incl. by lads at Recycle Cycle in Kingston/Surbiton. Get somebody like them to do it for you.

Semi-horiz drop-outs are great and can give quite a bit of adjustment. You can always jigger about with a half link as above. Example knackered road bike here

You can fiddle about with BB length and mounting chainring inner/outer to tweak chainline. Try and get it right though, or you might die 🙂 Nobody died, but still quite scary

I did this last year to an old peugeot which had been hanging up in my dads garage.

There are some photos on flickr.

VeloSolo and lfgss were incredibly useful as was the sheldon brown site.

Mine had semi horizontal dropouts which were perfect. I put a fixed cog on the back and used threadlock to stop it unscrewing. Not had any probs yet. A bmx freewheel should be fine too.

I did have to redish the wheel to accommodate the new chainline. Not as hard as it sounds. If you do it one spoke at a time. tighten spoke one half turn, loosen the next one half turn and repeat round the rim to pull the it over.

I learned a lot during the process.

HTH

to strip a geared bike down (probably) so the spacing will likely be standard.

standard? 120,126,130

My advice would be to find something old with 120mm spacing (likely 5spd) and then buy a new SS rear wheel.

lfgss and sheldon brown for advice.

Cheers for all the help guys, really appreciate it.

From what you've all posted it seems I'll try a BMX freewheel but my best bet may be to buy a cheap rear SS wheel or one with a proper free hub if the BMX route doesn't work. Re-dishing the wheel shouldn't be a problem, I've recently built my first proper wheelset so have a little experience already.

I'll have a sit down and will go throught the 3 sites recommended above too.

@meehaja Cheers for the offer but that's about £120 more than I wanted to pay 😆

@Hairychested That's definately cheating and I love a good project 😀

If you are building a single speed with a view to going fixed, get a flip/flop hub, threaded on one side for a freewheel(bmx) and for a fixed sprocket and lock ring on the other, something like a Mach 1 Omega which are fairly cheap.
If you get a frame with 120mm spacing on the rear dropouts you'll then need to get the correct BB for the chain line to be right, depending on what chainset your running it's usually a 107mm or sometimes a 103mm.
Happy riding.