Ride, Wrench, Swap, Race
Join Date: Jan 2010
Location: Northern California
Posts: 9,194
Bikes: Cheltenham-Pedersen racer, Boulder F/S Paris-Roubaix, Varsity racer, '52 Christophe, '62 Continental, '92 Merckx, '75 Limongi, '76 Presto, '72 Gitane SC, '71 Schwinn SS, etc.
Mentioned: 132 Post(s)
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Quoted: 1565 Post(s)
I always use an 18" adjustable wrench for freewheels, but if they still don't budge then I put the tool in the vise instead of giving myself a hernia.
Those things can be really tight, but I've never used penetrant. There is no access point to the threads except by going in along the axle opening, the axle bearings are likely going to get contaminated with the liquid unless applied sparingly with the wheel nearly vertical.
Don't mess with taking off that lockring unless you're wanting to modify the gearing (I did this to change a 28t cog to a 30t cog), I had to file two deep flats into the hard steel lockring to get it off using the vise. It was a lot of work.
Speaking of a lot of work, this evening I built another Shimano Ultra-6 freewheel using a Dura-Ace 7s freewheel with the small cog removed. I was able to thin down a 6s 600 freewheel dust shield to fit the opening left by removing the externally-threaded smallest cog from the Dura-Ace freewheel. It's actually about a half-millimeter wider than a Suntour Ultra-6 freewheel, but shifts much better.