Originally Posted by
harrier6
Hi,
I've been riding a Shimano Tourney 7 speed freewheel, 14-28, MF-TZ500 on my commuter for awhile, and while I appreciate the hyperglide teeth, one problem I've had is with a knocking sound while pedaling that comes from play in the freewheel body. With the chain off, you can grab the sprockets and twist them a small amount. It's done this since it was new. Searching the forums, it looks like this is common among freewheels these days, and has something to do with poor manufacturing tolerances because they are meant to be cheap parts.
Yeah, sure, upgrading to a freehub wouldn't cost that much, but I thought I'd ask if there was a way to take these freewheels apart and fix them. Sounds like it could be just a matter of adjusting bearing preload somehow?
Freewheel wobble isn’t a “these days” thing. Freewheels have
always wobbled just about the same amount independent of the freewheel.
Here’s what Jobst Brandt said about it back in 1996:
Freewheels and hubs are made as concentric as
machining reasonably permits. However, threads do not constitute a
good centering mechanism and since freewheels are made of concentric
components that are mounted on concentric threads, they can easily
acquire some wobble, that as you must have noticed, does not affect
performance at the slow rotational speeds of a bicycle.
In other words, there’s no fixing the problem. Live with it or get a freehub. Freehubs don’t have that problems because they aren’t concentric mechanisms mounted on a concentric thread.