bgriffin184

Hello everyone!
New member here. My wife and I are casual weekend bicycle riders, nothing serious. We like tooling around the neighborhood and an occasional 20-30 mile trek on the greenways where we live. We both have inexpensive bicycles that actually belonged to our kids when they were younger. I am curious about possibly replacing the freewheel on my wife's bike and wonder if it can be done without spending a ton of money. I just need something basic. The bike currently has a 6 speed freewheel and I cannot find a manufacturer name on it. I'm fairly certain it's off-brand made in Asia as the bikes were originally bought from Walmart. I've researched a few free wheels on amazon and some other sites. My question is this...is it even possible (due to threads, hub size, etc) to even swap such a part with a branded (Shimano, etc) freewheel without running into a lot of issues. Is it worth the hassle? Any thoughts or advice would be greatly appreciated.

JohnDThompson 

Freewheel thread has pretty much standardized at 1.37" x 24tpi. A couple decades ago, metric and Italian thread freewheels were also on the market, but it your bike was made anytime in the last couple decades, odds are it uses standard ISO freewheel thread.

Be aware that chain and cogs wear together, so replacing one often means replacing the other as well. If you're intending to use different cog sizes than on the original freewheel (e.g. for get lower or higher gearing), you may need to adjust the chain length or even replace the rear derailleur to hande the new chain length.

Andrew R Stewart 

The vast majority of currently made freewheels (and this covers the last decade+) are threaded to ISO standards. Pretty much the Eng. threading of yesteryear. So for all intents current freewheels are interchangeable WRT the hub threads. Now other specs like indexed or not, cog count, gear range, removal tools need their own paying attention to.

If the replacement freewheel has different gear range the chain's length might be needed to also change. The resulting system will want tuning to work/shift properly. Freewheel replacement can go seamlessly or can need a handful of secondary steps.

Many riders have had this done for a variety of reasons. Wanting a lower hill climbing gear is one common reason. Andy

dedhed

Unless you had something old Italian or French the threading isn't an issue. Shimano Hyperglide (HG) freewheels have shifting ramps, are cheap, and work well. Count teeth on the current cogs and find one with a similar range (typically 14T-28T or thereabouts) unless you would want to change the gearing for some reason. Changes of more than a few teeth on the larger gears may require the chain to be longer or shorter.

Unless it's something you plan to do often and want to buy the special required tool (and there are many tool styles) just take the wheel into a shop and ask for them to remove the old one. Usually less than $10 charge. The new one will thread right on. A little grease on the threads is a good practice.

bgriffin184

Thanks for the replies. I don't need to change the gearing so the chain length shouldn't be an issue. Based on what I've researched I had planned on replacing the chain at the same time. Again, many thanks for your advice!!!

fietsbob

Rather than worry about the one you are getting rid of, of unknown type,
bike shops have a collection of the various freewheel removers
for the different designs created over the decades ..
they will unscrew the old one..

then you can, reasonably, get a remover with your new freewheel (s)..




...

bgriffin184

Thanks for your suggestion. I'm on the same page. Already priced out a possible replacement freewheel that comes with the remover and chain. I need to check the gear sizes of the old one when I get home from work today. should be back riding in a jiffy!!!

DannoXYZ 

Other thing to be aware of is cog-spacing. Back in 6-spd days, there were many different spacings, so you should at least identify what you have now. Suntour had 2-different spacing, "regular" and "ultra" which was narrower (7-spd spacing on 6-cogs). Neither had consistent distance cog-to-cog. Shimano at least had even spacing between cogs. I remember disassembling Suntour freewheels and grinding cogs and spacers to have even spacing and be compatible with Shimano index-shifting.

If your current bike has indexed shifting, you should identify which model it is so you can purchase compatible freewheel. If friction shifting, then swap with whatever you want.

bgriffin184

DannonXYZ,
Many thanks for the advice! I do actually have indexed shifters. Good to know these type of things.

bgriffin184

Chief

But why?.... you never say why you want to change out something that might just be working perfectly fine...
Might as well change out the inner tubes while you are at it, no?

DannoXYZ 

Why ask why?

- maybe they want lower gearing
- maybe they want higher gearing.
- maybe existing freewheel has worn cogs and is slipping on new chain
- maybe they don't like colour of freewheel
- etc.

Chief

Well.... they did ask "is it worth the hassle?" Not enough info in the post to evaluate....

bgriffin184

Chief,
Here's the why...
It started out as just cleaning up the derailleur as it was a little sticky. The stops were adjusted correctly, but there was some hesitancy in the middle gears. My wife doesn't really shift much, but I wanted it working correctly so she wouldn't have reason for not doing so. As I was cleaning the derailleur, I thought it would be easy to clean up the gunky freewheel while I was at it. Then it progressed to cleaning the wheel hub, etc. etc. Unfortunately, I was in a bit deep when I realized I was using a solvent degreaser and I was removing the bearing grease too. Yeah, I was spraying the stuff quite liberally. Soooo....I decided to take the entire wheel apart, freewheel and all so I could clean it up spick and span. I thought about replacing the freewheel while I had it off. Well, that's not completely true. I actually took the freewheel completely apart (I did not separate the cogs) and completely cleaned everything. Since I had never been this far into a bicycle freewheel/cassette, I wanted to explore options of buying a new freewheel and chain and getting to the finish line without buying a new bike. I am happy to report as of last night, I have everything greased and back together. The only thing I have left to do is make some final adjustments on the derailleur and I should be good to go. I really appreciate everyone's advice and guidance from the forum!!!

bgriffin184