Making a Front Wheel Drive Derailleur

1. Start with a steel frame bike and remove the back wheel, deraileur and associated cables.  Hacksaw out the rear right hand side dropout  / derailer hanger as shown.  (This frame has a built in deraileur hanger)

2. Shape the hanger part of the frame you have just liberated.  It needs to be brazed on or attached to the bike fork as shown in photo 4.

3.  Slip steel tubes over the legs of the bike fork.  Stand on one of them and pull up on the other one to spread the legs of the fork to accommodate the wider (quick release) drive wheel.   The completed assembly is shown in photo 5.  It may take a few goes to get this right.

4.  Find a bolt (and matching nut) with a diameter the same as the wheel bolt.  Use it to attach the deraileur hanger to the fork.  Attach the deraileur to the hanger, it should point forwards on the right hand side of the fork and be in a position to work on the bike!  This position puts the deraileur in its "standard position" relative to the wheel centre.  Once it is attached in this way, the deraileur can be removed and then the hanger can be attached (brazed, welded or bolted) to the fork dropout.

5.  This shows the quick release wheel in place.  (In this case no cluster is fitted) Note that the bolt end can't protrude past the existing fork dropout, otherwise it will hit the derailleur hanger.  This set of parts has not gone into a bike yet.

6.  But here is one that has!  The chain, quick release skewer and gear change cable are all present.  Note that the quick release skewer must be completely removed to take away the wheel.  (This is a deraileur with a built-in hanger.  Installation steps are slightly different for this type)

7.  Vehicle with derailleur fitted, photo 6 is a detail of the deraileur of this machine.

Hi

This shows the sort of work I do to adapt a steel front bike fork and deraileur hanger for use on a front wheel drive bike.  I've never put this down in writing before.  Hope you can make some use of it.  Regards

Steve Nurse