Rear wheel

[Red Gauntlet]

Should the rear wheel be a QD type on the G80CS in as much as the sprocket stays in the frame or does the whole thing come out as one? My one is the latter but with a QD spindle...1964 ish

[mdt-son]

The 1960-62 type QD hub and sprocket/brake drum relies on 5 small driving pins and 5 rubber bushes fitted in the hub, to which the pins slid. While this early attempt of creating a cushioned rear hub was restricted to the G12 De Luxe and is to be commended, the design wasn't working well, pins were to small for the torque they were to transmit, and bushes too small for offering an effective cushioning. Besides, it must have been a fiddly operation entering the wheel on those pins onless the rubber bushes had a serious play. For 1963 AMC redesigned the QD wheel, creating a much more rugged design by abandoning the rubber bushes. This design is quite similar to Norton's QD hub actually, yet a better design in my view, and I think it would have worked on the G80CS. However, AMC never fitted it on the 500CS. Maybe they didn't trust the split spindle/dummy spindle concept for offroad use, or maybe they saw a benefit keeping the adjustable tapered bearings which have a huge axial load capacity. Lessons learned in later years is that radial bearings work just fine in a scrambles bikes.

I don't quite understand how a 1964 spindle will fit the 1960 non-qd hub and brake drum. I would have thought it's too short, disregarding any OD differences.

- Knut