free thingy help and identification????

[young Ed]

so do i have a free wheel or free hub? it screw s on to the hub and the cassette removal tools brings off my free.............. inside my cassette or cog set thingy and the free.............. crews onto my hub via a simple thread
and how would i remove my free........ from my cassette or group of cogs things
Cheers Ed
sorry for the terribly technical terms!

 

[biggs682]

freewheel , not sure if the cogs can be seperated , on some they can ?

 

[Rickshaw Phil]

That's a screw-on freewheel. Differences explained here.

The cogs can be seperated from the freewheel body on some - Sunrace for example. Why do you want to?

 

[young Ed]

cheers for the identification of what i have but i must have not been very clear on the other bit how would i remove the free wheel inside the cogs but if possible keep cogs all together?
i may want to remove free wheel if the pawls had broken or it was given me other trobkle or to simply upgrade to a better freewheel
or if i am scared the free wheel may die whilst i'm hopefully cycling lejog in 2015 i would replace it with a new one before i left
Cheers Ed

 

[compo]

You wouldn't want to strip the internals of a freewheel on the side of the road. Personally I wouldn't even want to try and strip one in the shed. They are not just fiddly, they have a lot of small ball bearings inside as well as the pawls and springs. For less than a tenner I just replace them. I find them quite reliable if you get a decent known make, such as Shimano. If you fit a new one a couple of months before your lejog it will give it time to throw up any problems before your ride and if all is well it is unlikely to fail en-route. Don't forget to fit a new chain along with the new freewheel. Let's face it, lejog isn't that far in terms of mileage for a component that many people run for years without issue.

 

[Rickshaw Phil]

Ah, I'm with you. Realistically the simplest thing would be to just replace the whole freewheel assembly if you run into trouble. Freewheels are only used on classic bikes and the cheap end of the market now so you won't find much in the way of upgrades. (A few choices here)

They're pretty reliable things in my experience. If you fit a new freewheel and chain a little while before the trip as @compo suggests it should be okay.

 

[young Ed]

thanks guys sounds good to me had a look and your right its far easier to click buy and then put in my details online then strip a free wheel
Cheers Ed

 

[Deleted member 1258]

You wouldn't want to strip the internals of a freewheel on the side of the road. Personally I wouldn't even want to try and strip one in the shed. They are not just fiddly, they have a lot of small ball bearings inside as well as the pawls and springs. For less than a tenner I just replace them. I find them quite reliable if you get a decent known make, such as Shimano. If you fit a new one a couple of months before your lejog it will give it time to throw up any problems before your ride and if all is well it is unlikely to fail en-route. Don't forget to fit a new chain along with the new freewheel. Let's face it, lejog isn't that far in terms of mileage for a component that many people run for years without issue.

Many years ago I had one self destruct on the road due to the face plate working loose, I was lucky in that the clearances on the rear of my bike was tight and I didn't lose the ball bearings, but it wasn't fun to reassemble it and tighten the plate with a screw driver and rock. They can be striped cleaned and greased, I did several in the days before cassettes, but its a fiddly job and I think they're cheap these days so I'd be inclined to replace rather than repair.

 

[young Ed]

ai true
don't think i will be rebuilding one due to an untold amount of obscenities and tears and me beating my self up black and blue and putting the bike off the road a lot longer than it would take for a new one to come through the post!
Cheers Ed

 

[andrew_s]

Usually the sprockets are held on by a screw-on small sprocket, with the others being splined. Use one chainwhip on the big sprocket to stop things just spinning, and another on the small sprocket to do the unscrewing.

[edit]
This was for getting the individual sprockets off the freewheel block.
Once a freewheel has been on the bike for a while, it can be easier to take the sprockets off than remove the whole thing (eg for a broken spoke)

 

[young Ed]

Usually the sprockets are held on by a screw-on small sprocket, with the others being splined. Use one chainwhip on the big sprocket to stop things just spinning, and another on the small sprocket to do the unscrewing.

you talking about a free hub teacher at school had my screw on free wheel with cassete off in no time with just cassete remover thingy and adjustable wrench
Cheers Ed

 

[cyberknight]

you talking about a free hub teacher at school had my screw on free wheel with cassete off in no time with just cassete remover thingy and adjustable wrench
Cheers Ed

True , hold the wheel and use the tool as your teacher did .
http://thebiketube.com/tutorial/how-remove-bicycle-freewheel-even-stuck-one

 

[I like Skol]

Yep, no chainwhip required for freewheel removal. I have some (historical!) experience of rebuilding freewheels when I was a teenager. Used to strip the freewheel by unscrewing the lockring with a screwdriver and hammer then, to remove the core of the freewheel, would grip it with molegrips and turn it off the hub. I only did this when a hub or wheel was wrecked so I could swap the freewheel to another and never had a problem due to the strip rebuild.

The freewheel doesn't take much load and none of the weight imposed on the wheel (that is taken by the wheels bearings) so I used to use simple Vaseline, just enough to stick the bearings in place during the rebuild and just a light oil for the pawls. You don't want anything thick or gloopy on the pawls or you may get slippage/engagement issues and that is the last thing you want

 

[young Ed]

Yep, no chainwhip required for freewheel removal. I have some (historical!) experience of rebuilding freewheels when I was a teenager. Used to strip the freewheel by unscrewing the lockring with a screwdriver and hammer then, to remove the core of the freewheel, would grip it with molegrips and turn it off the hub. I only did this when a hub or wheel was wrecked so I could swap the freewheel to another and never had a problem due to the strip rebuild.

The freewheel doesn't take much load and none of the weight imposed on the wheel (that is taken by the wheels bearings) so I used to use simple Vaseline, just enough to stick the bearings in place during the rebuild and just a light oil for the pawls. You don't want anything thick or gloopy on the pawls or you may get slippage/engagement issues and that is the last thing you want

were free wheels in cassettes not so cheap and widely available then? is they were cheap and widely available why did you keep the cogs? or am i getting the wrong end of the stick?
Cheers Ed

 

[I like Skol]

As a working class teenager in the mid-80's you did everything you could to make your paper round money stretch as far as you could!