kkraoj

I have a 6-speed SUNTOUR freewheel on Raleigh Olympian bicycle.
Recently, I noticed that my bike is making a moderate volume "ting" sound while pedaling.
I narrowed down the sound to play in the freewheel hub. See this video showing the play in freewheel hub and the sound: . The ting sound is very low volume but can be heard towards the end of the video. This is the exact sound I get while pedaling. It is a sound of metal contacting metal.

How can I fix this play in the freewheel hub and the sound?

Extra info:
1. From online reading, I see that freewheel hubs are supposed to have some play, which is Ok. But this sound is new- I never experienced this in the last 4 years I've had this bike. So may be this play is excessive?
2. How I narrowed down the sound (in case someone is wondering if the problem is somewhere else): I removed the chain and spun the cranks- no sound. I also checked the bottom bracket, there is no play there. I checked rear wheel axle and bearings- again no play. When I held the rear wheel and shook the cogs, they were shaking all together (meaning the play is between the cogs and the wheel, not cog-to-cog).
3. The sound is not at a particular crank position and appears randomly once every 1 or 2 seconds. The sound exists only when I pedal.
4. When did the sound start- I came back from a long bicycle tour and dismantled parts to clean the bike and service things. As part of that, I removed the freewheel, flooded the inside with WD-40 (this seems to be controversial, but I just followed this video- ), removed a lot of dirt from the inside by spinning it (the dirt came out with the WD-40 as a black fluid), then after letting it rest for 12 hours, lubricated it with tri-flow lubricant (I dont have tenacious oil) and installed it back. I have done this same procedure twice in the last 3 years without any issues (meaning it did not lead to such a sound). Now when I start pedaling with the bike on a bike stand, this sound appeared. I have still not taken the bike for a ride. I suspect that the freewheel hub got loose some time in the last 1 year, but I did not notice/hear it because there was a lot of gunk in the hub which restricted/dampened the play, but now that I cleaned everything, the sound is very easy to hear, and the play is very visible.

Thanks for your help! I love this community!

Iride01 

I wasn't able to hear anything that concerned me. But there are a few missing frequencies in my hearing spectrum.

That is more play than I remember any of my freewheels ever having. But I don't know that I'd worry much about it until it got to the point that it didn't do the two main things a freewheel is supposed to do. One being what it's named for, freewheel. And the other thing, not freewheeling when you pedal forward.

Or at least I might let it go longer and just be thinking about whether I wanted to and had the tools and skill to take it apart and rebuild it. If so, will any needed parts be able to be found? Or just remove and replace it, which is the easiest option and usually inexpensive depending on availability in your area.

kkraoj

Thanks for the response. Yes, my phone microphone (even with earphones plugged in) was not able to pick up the sound well. Let me try actually riding it and then see if it is creating trouble. At the moment, it is allowing me to pedal and it is rotating freely while coasting- so yes, both purposed fulfilled!

Rogerogeroge

This was always a common issue BITD.

Go ask Sheldon.

https://www.sheldonbrown.com/rebuild-freewheel.html

When you take the freewheel apart, you'll have multiple shims, and this is shown in his pics. Remove the thinnest shim and re-assemble. If it still has too much play, take it apart, remove a thicker shim and add back the one you originally repeat. It's kind of counter-intuitive that removing shiims reduces play, but read through the link.

kkraoj

Thank you SO much! Removing the thinnest shim fixed it completely. While at, I also cleaned the freehub (I never knew the part was dismantlable), swapped the bearings, and my ride is much smoother and quieter.

Bill Kapaun

Just curious-
How much did that cost?

kkraoj

I had bought a pack of 500 bearings (100 each of 5 different size) for a total of $10: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1. I had actually bought it for fixing my bottom bracket which used bigger bearings. But it also came with 100 1/8" bearings which were in my freehub. And I used 71 of them.

Bill Kapaun

Can't beat that price for grade 16.
$10 for 100ea. 3/16 & 1/4 would be worth it.
Cool that you could actually use that size.