eBay beater - bent fork issue?

[frugalracer]

Long time lurker. First post!

Anyway, I took delivery is a cheap old racer from eBay to use as an urban beater and deter thieves. It was well packed with the front wheel removed.

The wheel, with a basic non quick-release hub, wouldn't go back on. The hub measures at 100mm, the fork width at dropouts only about 84mm! Seller said he was unsure what's happened but has offered to send the original wheels. I don't see this would help if he's right in saying there was no problem with the supplied wheel.

To the naked eye the fork isn't obviously twisted so I can only assume the fork blades were pushed together in transit and have bent inwards a little. Any checks I can do to confirm what's going on?

And is bending them back something easy to do?

 

[Excel]

if it's a beater then a cheap easy method to widen the blades if they've been pushed in a bit is to insert a solid hub axle between the dropouts (sans hub) with two wheel nuts already screwed into the middle of the axle then unscrew them outwards so they're just touching the inside of both dropouts then a couple of turns each at a time with a correct spanner until they have pushed open the forks to the desired width(allow a few extra turns for a bit of blade springback when removing)or a quicker alternative if you're confident enough is to find an open stairway insert one fork blade under one of the stairs and gently pull up on the other blade until you have the required width, warning though do it "gently bentley" and definitely not to your good bike!!

 

[frugalracer]

Tentatively tried the stair method. After a few gentle tugs, I'd gained a couple of mm. A few more rounds and the wheel went on fine.

Thanks. Beater up and running!

 

[Excel]

.....we'll make a mechanic of you yet!

 

[Old Ned]

The moral of this story is -

ALWAYS put an axle, an old hub or a piece of wood across the inside of front and rear dropouts when posting bikes and frames.