Raleigh Hercules folding bike

Very nice. My housemate bought one of these for £60 and spent another £20 on it "getting the brakes done" by Halfords (all they did was fit new inner cables and levers with the wrong cable pull so the brakes were worse than before... boy I was livid). £20 for a running bike seems like a bargain in comparison!

The problems with SA hub gears are with the shifter 99% of the time. Check that moving the shifter moves the cable at the rear, and play about with the adjuster so that when the shifter is in 'top', the cable is only slightly slack. If the cable doesn't move, or if this doesn't work, then oil everything, or replace the cable.

You can check that the hub itself works by unbolting the shifter cable from the hub at the rear, you'll be able to play with the indicator rod (the thin rod with the little chain that goes in and out through the rear axle). The indicator rod should be screwed all the way in, then backed off about one rotation. Then rotate the cranks very slowly whilst pulling the rod - when there's no tension it should be in top gear, pull it out a little and it should go into middle gear, and pull it out all the way and it should be in bottom gear. You have to stop pedalling to change gear, but they change gear better when coasting rather than at a standstill. If this doesn't work then I guess the hub needs a rebuild (very rare) but they are so cheap you might as well buy a new one, or put a singlespeed BMX wheel on the back.

Cool lil shopper that.

Unscrew the cable at the toggle chain on the hub. Pedal it and it'll drop into third gear.

(in theory)

Then put the shifter into third and connect the cable up at the toggle chain again. Adjust so theres just a lil slack in the cable... Then try it out.

don't change gear while under load. Changing gear and then pedalling a little (not loaded) helps it go in to gear though.

Sorry to dig up an old post - I've just got this bike from Freecyle! Mine's not in as good condition at yours. No idea what I'm doing with it really!
I need to take it somewhere to get the tyres and brakes looked at, worried Halfords will rip me off!

I wouldn't even know how to put them in!

It about as simple as can be, you don't even need tyre levers just a couple of big spoon handles will do, i'm sure there will be loads of how to videos on the net

It can be tricky getting the wheels out of folding bikes like these.
The semicircle rear mudguard might mean that the tyres got to be deflated before the wheel will come out, or go into the frame.
Probably restricts tyre choice a bit. Probably only to 1.75 wide tyres. Maybe 2" if its quite a smooth tread. Not knobbly tyres that are easy to get for kids mtbs.
I think thats a mid 80s bike. There will be a 3 digit number on the rear 3 speed hub, giving month and year. I think if its "new" enough it will have lock nuts on the cones on the front wheel axle. Older Raleighs had no locknuts. Had a weird system where the fork ends had a sort of keyhole shape, to hold the cones on the front axle. I always found them a right pain. As the forks had to be levered open a bit to accept the wheel, and tightening the wheel nuts might affect the adjustment of the wheel bearings.
It looks to me like its got the original brake pads, that have alloy er backplates. Those pads might be leather faced. Or if they are all rubber, they will be old and hard. So I would recommend you to change them, as they will be not very good/ dangerous, as they wont grip the wheels very well, if at all. Best to get pads that are for those brakes. I have fitted V brake pads, that have a lot of special shaped washers, for adjustment. Those are common on a lot of bikes, very easy to get. To my Raleigh Traveller roadster bike. That has similar chrome plated brakes. The slots are a bit wider and the pads took ages to set up.