I'm having some issues with the 3-speed I built. It's an old sturmey archer that Zeekat overhauled I believe. I purchased a new 3-speed sturmey shifter for it and it seemed to work relatively well but now I'm realizing the index shifting seems chronic. In 3rd gear it will occasionally skip, as in, I can just spin the pedals and not engage. However, that's rare, what happens most often is in 1st gear when I'm trying to climb a hill or something the shifter keeps slipping and going into 2nd. I've tried to adjust the cable tension numerous times but this doesn't seem to fix it.

My inclination is to scrap the index shifter and just get a friction shifter instead as I believe I'll be able to better dial in the gearing that way.

thoughts?

I thought all 3 speeds were "indexed". But I might be completely wrong.

The only non-indexed hub gear that I know of is that davinci hub thing. All Sturmey archer 3 speeds are indexed. I don't think friction shifting is a good idea. I would mess with the adjustment some more and replace the cable if you have not done so already.

bikesmith is a 3-speed god.

Yes, I have heard rumors that when the first 3 speed hub died, it was reincarnated as Bikesmith.

You should send Bikesmith a PM and maybe he could check your hub out sometime...

This is what I was getting at. He lives fairly close to you, Suspeckted.

good advice, but I'm reading in other forums people experiencing similar problems with their shifters popping into other gears and whatnot. So I'd like to think I'm not in a position yet where I need someone to look at it and was hoping to hear about 1st hand experience.

That's weird; it worked fine for me. IIRC, SA hubs are "high-normal", so the symptom you're describing makes me think cable tension. I did have to put loc-tite on my old friction-shifter tension bolt to keep it from loosening, as that would let the cable tension change and that would let the hub "auto-shift". However, I have not used a SA indexed shifter, so I'm not sure what would cause it to act that way.

Good luck, I also suggest asking Bikesmith, even for the index shifter part of the question.

There's a bunch of S-A trigger shifters at OoOBs, and a bunch of S-A twist shifters at The Hub. And, of course, increasing cable tension is free.

I shot a PM to bikesmith.

Not a God, merely a Sturmey wallah who knows where to find what the Gods have written.

Bring it over and I'll check it out.

So how much weight would I expect to lose out of a Shimano 3cc hub if I took the coaster brake assembly out of it? Because if it's not at least 8 ounces, I see the drawbacks of tearing one of these apart to far outweigh the benefits. I'm kind of leaning toward keeping the brake parts in it, because I haven't owned a bike with a coaster brake since I was about 8. It might be fun. Maybe lace it to a 700C rim to lose a little weight over the chromed steely.

So there were a number of things Bikesmith determined were an issue.

#1 - wrong indicator chain.
#2 - I must mashed the dropouts together rather than put in spacers = BIG no-no
#3 - I noticed it was slipping a bit in the dropouts so and change in where the wheel was = change in shifting. Seems to be working pretty splendidly now!

Thanks Bikesmith!