# Nuke proof



## mik_git (Feb 4, 2004)

I remeber years ago, i loved nuke proof, there frames were cool and i always intended to build wheels with only NP carbon hubs when i built up my dream bike... thats was 10 years ago though...

I also seem to remeber lots of horror stories with them falling apart etc... anybody using love/hating there stuff?


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## lucifer (Sep 27, 2004)

I love my frame


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## mik_git (Feb 4, 2004)

mmmmmmm.........


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## Kansasflatlander (Jan 13, 2004)

*Still riding with 1994 Nuke Proof hubs*

with the original bearings. These hubs have gone through three bikes, a few rims, and still riding on the original bearings. They don't get as much use as they used to, but I've got thousands of miles on 'em.


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## Rumpfy (Dec 21, 2003)

But I did run a set of their hubs for several years. I bought a set of built wheels from the factory stock buy out (from the MTBR classifieds), and rode the piss out of those hubs. The bearings were a bit grindy, but I never had a bit of trouble with the hubs.
I then sold the hubs for as much as I paid for the wheelset new on eBay!

I have heard lots of stories about their hubs blowing up, and carbon failure. This was not true of my hubs...but it is true of my Nuke Proof Ti/Carbon frame which is still broken...


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## JmZ (Jan 10, 2004)

*Had 'em, liked 'em, Sold 'em*

Had a set of the carbon hubs, laced 'em to Bonti Mustang and Valiant with Ti spokes. Nice and light wheels. They were ridden for several years but sold to fund a new bike purchase.

Never an issue with the wheels. Bearings were good as was engagement.

Have another set of Nuke's. Set of Superfly hubs laced to Bonti Mustangs. Still going strong (knock on wood), but had to replace the freehub last year, nice that they used easy to find parts. Only problem with those in several years running.

If they re-emerge I'd consider their stuff again. It worked pretty good, wasn't a bad price and looked nifty. A Centerloc Nuke hub would sure be tempting, esp in Ti.

JmZ



mik_git said:


> I remeber years ago, i loved nuke proof, there frames were cool and i always intended to build wheels with only NP carbon hubs when i built up my dream bike... thats was 10 years ago though...
> 
> I also seem to remeber lots of horror stories with them falling apart etc... anybody using love/hating there stuff?


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## donk (Jan 28, 2004)

Guess I'll be the only nay sayer in the group.

I had an original hi/lo flange carbon rear hub that ran awesome for 3-4 years, until the freehub body went. Great I think, this should be easy to fix, cartridge bearings and a shimano freehub body. Punch the bearing retainer out of the body, install new freehub body, reuse bearing retainer andnew bearings. The freehub body does not seat properly and squeals and honks whenever pressure is put on teh pedals. Call NP, they get me to send teh hub back and $100 andsend me a pair of superfly's. Great deal and good customer support for a single 5 year old hub. The same thing happened with the rear superfly as teh carbon, plus the bearings in the front wheel come loose from shell when in use.

If anyone knows how to fix the rear superfly so it does not honk, let me know. 

Alternatively, I might be interested in selling or trading both hubs for something interesting. Interesting to me is bicycle related pint glasses. 

I also have extra bearings, an extra rear axle(ti or steel depending on what a person may want) and an extra bearing retainer


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## flyingsuperpetis (Jan 16, 2004)

Hm. The notion of sqealing, honking hubs is strangely intruiging to me, and I'm tempted to go look for a pint glass or two... lemme see what I can find.


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## scant (Jan 5, 2004)

had 2 front hub flanges come away from the carbon. 1 flange cracked.
rear drive side flange fell off (causing partial wheel collapse!)
rear axle snapped..

not good!


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## t2p (Jul 22, 2004)

mik_git said:


> I remeber years ago, i loved nuke proof, there frames were cool and i always intended to build wheels with only NP carbon hubs when i built up my dream bike... thats was 10 years ago though...
> 
> I also seem to remeber lots of horror stories with them falling apart etc... anybody using love/hating there stuff?


.
donk - unfortunately, I have to join the naysayer group. 
.
I used Nuke hubs *briefly* for a few years on both an off-road bike and a road bike. I guess I was more into 'experimentation' at the time. I did like the fact that they used the Shimano freehub. The hubs were lightweight - (primarily) because there was not too much there ..... most everything was downsized .... the flanges, shell, bearings ........ therefore the light weight. Oh well.
.
From an engineering standpoint - I was not too impressed ..... because it does not appear there was a decent amount of engineering behind them*** and into the design. It appears a few young guys got some parts made and glued them together. The 'glue' part .... the assembly ...... may have been the only thing they did themselves. (I believe they may have also layed up the carbon bars) Oh well. 
.
* contrast this with a King hubset ..... or a current American Classic hubset .... (for example) ...... both hubsets have a significant amount of engineering behind them and it shows in the design .....


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## simpletrim (Aug 20, 2004)

*One for the plus column.*

Ive been running Nuke Proof hubs and skewers on this bike for many years. Absolutely no problems. I also just replaced a Nuke Proof flat bar that I ran with for about 11 years. The bar is still in great shape, I just wanted to splurge on something new.


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## HoSS (Dec 24, 2003)

Wow, that's purdy! Breezer's look so good set up SS. Nice build.




simpletrim said:


> Ive been running Nuke Proof hubs and skewers on this bike for many years. Absolutely no problems. I also just replaced a Nuke Proof flat bar that I ran with for about 11 years. The bar is still in great shape, I just wanted to splurge on something new.


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## DWF (Jan 12, 2004)

Rumpfy said:


> But I did run a set of their hubs for several years. I bought a set of built wheels from the factory stock buy out (from the MTBR classifieds), and rode the piss out of those hubs. The bearings were a bit grindy, but I never had a bit of trouble with the hubs.
> I then sold the hubs for as much as I paid for the wheelset new on eBay!
> 
> I have heard lots of stories about their hubs blowing up, and carbon failure. This was not true of my hubs...but it is true of my Nuke Proof Ti/Carbon frame which is still broken...


Where's it broken, Ti or CF? Either way, should be an easy fix to make it a rider.


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## vdubbusrider (Jul 28, 2004)

awesome retro single speed bob trailer towing dude!


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## DaveInDenver (Sep 16, 2004)

I also had a flange on a rear hub crack. Lost 5 spokes worth of flange. Didn't have a ton of miles on it, about 2 years old at the time. I loved the hub, though. Smooth while it was still alive.


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## Rumpfy (Dec 21, 2003)

DWF said:


> Where's it broken, Ti or CF? Either way, should be an easy fix to make it a rider.


The Carbon has pulled itself loose from the Ti headtube. Nothing is cracked as far as I can tell...but it seems this could be the reason they never went into produciton.

Here's the picutres of the split

Criag Calfee said to JB weld it, which I'd rather not do...I would think it'd throw the geometry off. The only other way to get it to set correclty would be to pull the rear Ti triangle off and then pull the carbon main tubes off the Ti headtube...then re-epoxy everything. I seems a very tight fit, plus I don't know how brittle the carbon is.

I'd welcome any leads to getting it fixed.


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## icegeek (Feb 16, 2004)

*unabashed spam*

I have a new NP carbon singlespeed/track rear hub if anybody would be interested in such a thing. Just sitting on the shelf, waiting to find a loving home...


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## JohnnyH (Mar 21, 2004)

*NP frames*

I'm from here in Grand Rapids Mich - the homeland of nuke proof. I asked a friend of mine that worked there in the early 90's about the carbon/ti frames. He said run... run far from them. He said that they were very experimental - basically just glued them together and said - hmmm, looks cool. Another friend of mine used to drill the hub flanges there. He said he hopes no one is riding any of the hibs he drilled early in the am when he was hung over  Another tidbit on the ti frames is that the early ones were made by Litespeed and Nuke put decals on them. I still see their head welder riding his all over the area. He's still riding the NP ti he welded himself, mag 21 and all! Probably millions of miles on his bike and still going strong.


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## lucifer (Sep 27, 2004)

JohnnyH said:


> I'm from here in Grand Rapids Mich - the homeland of nuke proof. I asked a friend of mine that worked there in the early 90's about the carbon/ti frames. He said run... run far from them. He said that they were very experimental - basically just glued them together and said - hmmm, looks cool. Another friend of mine used to drill the hub flanges there. He said he hopes no one is riding any of the hibs he drilled early in the am when he was hung over  Another tidbit on the ti frames is that the early ones were made by Litespeed and Nuke put decals on them. I still see their head welder riding his all over the area. He's still riding the NP ti he welded himself, mag 21 and all! Probably millions of miles on his bike and still going strong.


Is there any way to tell which ones were litespeed and which ones were in house made?
mine is serial number 1118.
I believe I bought it in early 1995. The welds on it are really nice.


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## JohnnyH (Mar 21, 2004)

lucifer said:


> Is there any way to tell which ones were litespeed and which ones were in house made?
> mine is serial number 1118.
> I believe I bought it in early 1995. The welds on it are really nice.


Sorry for the delay. I'm fairly sure the ones Nuke Proof built had the seat stays welded slightly above the top tube junction with the seat tube. Like the picture of the one at the top of this thread. Also, I think by '95 they were making there own.


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## t2p (Jul 22, 2004)

Rumpfy said:


> The Carbon has pulled itself loose from the Ti headtube. Nothing is cracked as far as I can tell...but it seems this could be the reason they never went into produciton.
> 
> Here's the picutres of the split
> 
> ...


Rumpfy/Eric:
.
You may want to try Harry Havnoonian ....... H & H ..... or whatever the company is ..... I believe one of his specialties (in addition to custom frame building) is carbon fiber frame repair .........


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## t2p (Jul 22, 2004)

simpletrim said:


> Ive been running Nuke Proof hubs and skewers on this bike for many years. Absolutely no problems. I also just replaced a Nuke Proof flat bar that I ran with for about 11 years. The bar is still in great shape, I just wanted to splurge on something new.


.
the rear hub in this picture is much bigger than the hubs I have ..... I have the older and much smaller version .........


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## purdyboy (Nov 15, 2005)

Bringing up an old thread (sorry - if that's undesired 'round here?)

I too have Nuke proof hubs that have been well loved by a lightweight and smooth riding mostly x/c rider (ie not abused).

They were bought new by me in 92/3? I think they are the early ones with the non tapered (perpendicular...) flange.

They still work fine BUT...

The rear drive side alum started cracking. Not the flange where the spoke holes are but the short spigot that the carbon slides into. This happened a few years ago, so I carefully wrapped an alum' hose clamp around the cracked section to compress it and stop the crack propagating all the way to the spoke flange. So far so good.
This was a real bodgy fix, I never thought i'd come across fellow retroheads who may know how to fix it.

1)Anybody know what bonding agent ('glue') was used for the hubs? If I can find this out I can disassemble the hub, press a thin sleeve over the cracked section and re-glue. Or even turn up a new flange. I don't want to ditch the hub.

2)Anyone know if this hub can be made to suit 8 spd as its currently wearing 7spd cluster. I may want to 'upgrade' to some 'newer' first series XTR kit.

Thanks for replies.

...and thanks for letting me know I'm not the only one who loves keeping older bikes running.


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## smudge (Jan 12, 2004)

lucifer said:


> Is there any way to tell which ones were litespeed and which ones were in house made?
> mine is serial number 1118.
> I believe I bought it in early 1995. The welds on it are really nice.


 This is just an assumption, but it appears that yours was made by NP and not LiteSpeed. Every LS frame that ever came through my shop used much smaller filler wire on the welds than what appears to have been used on your frame. The puddles were also much closer together than your appear to be.


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## Lutarious (Feb 8, 2005)

*Rennen*



simpletrim said:


> Ive been running Nuke Proof hubs and skewers on this bike for many years. Absolutely no problems. I also just replaced a Nuke Proof flat bar that I ran with for about 11 years. The bar is still in great shape, I just wanted to splurge on something new.


That bike would be perfect with a Rennen Rollenlager tensioner. (next time you feel the need to splurge on something new.)


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## Deepwoods-Flyer (Nov 14, 2004)

*Im still using an ATOM Bomb front hub on my SS*

Only replaced the bearing Once due to an ear piercing squeal!


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## lucifer (Sep 27, 2004)

smudge said:


> This is just an assumption, but it appears that yours was made by NP and not LiteSpeed. Every LS frame that ever came through my shop used much smaller filler wire on the welds than what appears to have been used on your frame. The puddles were also much closer together than your appear to be.


Thanks for the insight. Whoever built it, one thing is for sure, it still rides great.


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## Rumpfy (Dec 21, 2003)

purdyboy said:


> 1)Anybody know what bonding agent ('glue') was used for the hubs? If I can find this out I can disassemble the hub, press a thin sleeve over the cracked section and re-glue. Or even turn up a new flange. I don't want to ditch the hub.
> 
> 2)Anyone know if this hub can be made to suit 8 spd as its currently wearing 7spd cluster. I may want to 'upgrade' to some 'newer' first series XTR kit.
> 
> ...


1) Honestly...If you like the hub enough, there are enough of these out there, where you should really just buy a new one (or slightly used, non broken one). I can't say that doing a re-epoxy on it is all that safe.

2) 8spd should fit. I ran 7, 8, and 9spd on mine. It was a newer gen hub though.

And yes...you're not the only one riding the oldies!


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## logbiter (Dec 30, 2003)

Deepwoods-Flyer said:


> Only replaced the bearing Once due to an ear piercing squeal!


I'm still running a set of those too on my Tazmon! 
Delamination was a problem w/ all these hubs, just gotta keep an eye out for it. I always got great customer service from 'em, before they went under anyway.


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## sgltrak (Feb 19, 2005)

Still using my low flange hubs w/ freewheel (as opposed to freehub) rear hub. I built these wheels in 1991 and have ridden them regularly since, on what was my only bike until a year ago. Never had any problem. I have the rear set up with a corn cob and a slick for road riding, now, but still use the front on my rigid bike. 

I used to sell these hubs, and had to warranty 2 of the later model rear hubs that came apart around 1992 or 3. Company was great about warranty on the hubs, but I still had to re-build the wheels.


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## purdyboy (Nov 15, 2005)

"1) Honestly...If you like the hub enough, there are enough of these out there, where you should really just buy a new one (or slightly used, non broken one). I can't say that doing a re-epoxy on it is all that safe.
2) 8spd should fit. I ran 7, 8, and 9spd on mine. It was a newer gen hub though."


Thanks for the reply Rumpfy,
I'm down in Oz and these hubs are rare as rocking horse sh#t. There may be a few fellow retrohead that knows of other parts down my way, but i've never seen them.
If I do it, the re-epoxy and press sleeve job will be strongest portion of the hub, never mind about that.  . I have a suspicion that the crack is due to a hoop stress set up from poor alignment and fit of the carbon into the spigot when it was made, as the carbon never actually contacted the cracks pint of origin and the spigot shows a slight doming at half length. A bit weird. 
Anyway my bike parts talk to me (at least I think its the bike parts?) and this hub still wants to share some trails. I was wondering if anyone has info on a passive method of 'unbonding' (my largest hammer will be a distant last resort).
It's good to get insights into the manufacture of these hubs from you blokes on this site, it confirms my thoughts. I still love my NPs.


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## urmb (Oct 4, 2005)

I have a set of nuke proof hubs. I built them up years ago. The rear was a 7 speed until I used their 8 speed conversion kit to make it an 8-speed. They are currenly collecting dust, but have served well. One wheelbuilding buddy had heard that the flanges on some of their hubs were misaligned. 

Yamabiker


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## t2p (Jul 22, 2004)

purdyboy said:


> "1) Honestly...If you like the hub enough, there are enough of these out there, where you should really just buy a new one (or slightly used, non broken one). I can't say that doing a re-epoxy on it is all that safe.
> 2) 8spd should fit. I ran 7, 8, and 9spd on mine. It was a newer gen hub though."
> 
> Thanks for the reply Rumpfy,
> ...


.
I had some Nuke hubs in a box ........ somewhere ........ might have given them to someone ........ If I can locate them, you guys can have them if you want them .......... 
.
the hubs were poorly engineered - actually there was literally no engineering applied to the design and construction of these hubs ........... why did I purchase them ? - at the time they were one of the few lightweight options that used the Shimano freehub ....... I had them on off-road wheelsets and road wheelsets .......... they were lightweight primarliy because there was not too much there - especially the early versions with the tiny flanges ..... of course, longer spokes were then required (there goes some of the weight savings) .... the early small flange hubs were really nasty - the sharp edge was known to contribute to premature spoke failures ......
.


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## t2p (Jul 22, 2004)

JohnnyH said:


> I'm from here in Grand Rapids Mich - the homeland of nuke proof. I asked a friend of mine that worked there in the early 90's about the carbon/ti frames. He said run... run far from them. He said that they were very experimental - basically just glued them together and said - hmmm, looks cool. Another friend of mine used to drill the hub flanges there. He said he hopes no one is riding any of the hibs he drilled early in the am when he was hung over  Another tidbit on the ti frames is that the early ones were made by Litespeed and Nuke put decals on them. I still see their head welder riding his all over the area. He's still riding the NP ti he welded himself, mag 21 and all! Probably millions of miles on his bike and still going strong.


.
I was not aware that they ever had a 'head welder' ..... or anyone that posessed the knowledge or skill to build a frame - if so, not so sure I would check the alignment. I believe most everything - but the carbon work - was performed by someone else .... ...... I met 'them' - Nuke - young guy (Jeff ?) and his wife ? ..... girl friend ? at interbike one year.


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## t2p (Jul 22, 2004)

smudge said:


> This is just an assumption, but it appears that yours was made by NP and not LiteSpeed. Every LS frame that ever came through my shop used much smaller filler wire on the welds than what appears to have been used on your frame. The puddles were also much closer together than your appear to be.


.
I was never aware that Litespeed provided frames to Nuke ....... maybe another source ? ....
who built the Dean frames ? .......... although the welds on those frames are probably on the 'small' side .........


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## lucifer (Sep 27, 2004)

FWIW the guys I bought mine from (LBS back in 1995) said that they were made in house. I think from sandvik tubing.


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## DeeEight (Jan 13, 2004)

t2p said:


> .
> I was never aware that Litespeed provided frames to Nuke ....... maybe another source ? ....
> who built the Dean frames ? .......... although the welds on those frames are probably on the 'small' side .........


You seem to be unaware of a great many things about nukeproof other than how to make up crap about them.

Litespeed made their early Ti frames, as they also did for Dean for a number of years, and alpinestars, and rocky mountain and a host of others.


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## t2p (Jul 22, 2004)

DeeEight said:


> You seem to be unaware of a great many things about nukeproof other than how to make up crap about them.
> 
> Litespeed made their early Ti frames, as they also did for Dean for a number of years, and alpinestars, and rocky mountain and a host of others.


.
Sorry if my tone has been too down ....... 
.
I had a bad experience with the hubs ...... finally was forced to give up on them ...... 
.
however .... I'm not 'making up crap' ........ I met the guy (Jeff) ...people/whatever from Nuke Proof ...... talked to them ....... did not get a warm fuzzy feeling ........ talked to them when I had issues ...... I have an engineering background - I observed little of this .......... I would probably say the same thing about Dean ..... met them at Interbike .... not sure about now, but that is the impression I had ten or so years ago ...... 
.
This was a fairly common issue with many of the small guys in the early 90's ....... many of the parts were under-engineered ...... (speaking of Dean) the Dean seat post comes to mind - went through a few of those ........ Ringle seat posts ........... (Ringle hubs - OUCH ....) 
.
Here are a few reviews on Nuke hubs - (my 'review' is not here) 
.
http://www.mtbr.com/reviews/Hub/product_22054.shtml
.


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