Freehub a bit too free - not engaging - options

[Brucey]

it is always worth trying a bit of lube, both on the freehub and in the main hub bearings.

If you have cup and cone hub bearings they will be adjustable/serviceable and if you have cartridge hub bearings they may also be adjustable, and they will be easy enough to replace in any event. Budget cartridge bearings of reasonable quality are likely to cost about £5 a pair.

I have a feeling that I have a spare Sachs hub somewhere, with an 8s freehub body on it. It came in a Sunn, and is Sunn branded, but it also has sachs branding on the dustcaps etc.

cheers

[Gattonero]

The thing is, tooling for repairing a Shimano freehub is hard to find and does cost money. And it may well be like flogging a dead horse.

Following advice from Brucey and others in Another Place, I've just bought a tool for stripping freehubs for less than £7. But I'm interested to see inside mine, I've already got a spare freehub in stock, and I like flogging dead horses

I'll let you know how I get on.

Good for you to have so much time

[LittleGreyCat]

Just coming back to this now I have my cartridge bottom bracket installed and I am part way through cleaning up my front cogs.

I am set up with STI shifters for a 7 speed rear hub.

If I decide not to refurbish, where do I get a new wheel to take a 7 speed cassette?

Minimum online seems to be 8.

[Brucey]

https://www.sjscycles.co.uk/hub-spares/shimano-7-speed-cassette-freehub-body-for-hg50-hubs-30h-9801/

will fit many other shimano hubs with the 'old' body-to-hubshell interface.

cheers

[LittleGreyCat]

https://www.sjscycles.co.uk/hub-spares/shimano-7-speed-cassette-freehub-body-for-hg50-hubs-30h-9801/

will fit many other shimano hubs with the 'old' body-to-hubshell interface.

cheers

So to be clear in my head, I need to source:

a wheel with an old style Shimano hub (but how do I specify this?)
this cassette freehub body
a 7 speed shimano cassette with the required gear spacing

Ummm.....hollow axle for quick release skewer? Current one will probably do.

I assume this isn't something I can order as a package.

I was doing all right until I started looking at the cost of wheels. 36 spoke seems to start at £70-80. If a new rear wheel assembly in going to cost me north of £100 that is getting to the point of being more than the bike is worth.

Pending advice, I will probably service the rear wheel as best I can, but if the inner bearing cups are thrashed then this suggests that a new wheel is needed (the rims are too old to justify a rebuild).

[Brucey]

Until quite recently you could buy an STX 7s freehub body new and this fits more different shimano hubs than the one I linked to. The way things are going it looks like it is shortly going to be used/NOS stuff (eg from ebay) for 7s freehub bodies or devious modifications from now on.

So far as resurrecting your present wheel there are two main options

1) lube the freehub body, service the hub bearings.

2) replace/rebuild the freehub body, renew all possible parts in the main hub bearings.

With many other possibilities inbetween.

Supposing you had a suitable donor hub, you could easily replace the freehub body and the bearing surfaces, all bar the LH cup insert.

If the wheel were mine I'd probably rebuild the freehub body and the hub bearings. IME hub bearings with 1/4" balls in run well enough (because the balls are big) even when the surfaces are not quite perfect. In a similar vein the freehub bearings only turn when freewheeling; it really doesn't matter if the bearing surfaces are perfect or not since there is no load when you are freewheeling. Far more important IMHO is that there is no free play in the freehub bearings. IME the free play can be adjusted out of the freehub body bearings and the thing will work (somewhat noisily in some cases to be sure) for years, provided the thing is lubed and the water is kept out.

BTW if you would like me to overhaul your existing freehub body, PM me.

cheers

[LittleGreyCat]

O.K. I don't think I have a cassette lock ring removal tool.
I have one for a freewheel (other bike).
First look shows several hits for IceToolz e.g.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/IceToolz-Cassette-Lockring-Tool-Shimano/dp/B0028N57UU
I know Park Tools are better, but does this look O.K.?

[Brucey]

lockring tools have bigger splines on them than shimano freewheel tools yet are required to see far less torque. They mostly all work OK, even quite cheap ones.

If you have a shimano freewheel remover this (even though the splines are the wrong height) will usually unscrew a shimano cassette lockring OK. It is a bad idea to rely on this in the long run; you will sooner or later ruin either a lockring or the tool, but it may get you out of the poop.

cheers

[LittleGreyCat]

O.K.
Lock ring and cassette off easily with chain whip, axle out and ball bearings all over the place.

It looks as though there is a splined fitting inside (looking from the left) which I assume is used to unscrew the freehub from the wheel.

It is bigger than my biggest splined socket - M12 - so does anyone know how big this is?
I would like to be sure before ordering one.

[Brucey]

if there is a splined fitting visible from the left side then (although it might be designed to accept shimano sprockets) it is almost certainly a not a shimano hub. These pattern hubs work OK but documentation is sparse concerning them; I have found hubs which accept 12mm, 14mm, 11mm and 7/16" allen keys on the left side. There are some where the fitting is effectively a nut and others where it is a bolt, the threading can be left or right-handed and it can therefore unscrew in either direction.

Before getting much further into it I would counsel that you run a load of oil into the freehub body and 'exercise it'. It may be enough to free up sticky pawls. However if the oil runs out rust coloured, then you know there has been evil afoot and that you should perhaps overhaul the freehub body properly.

BTW it is very much the best thing to overhaul such freehub bodies in situ, i.e. without removing them from the wheel. You need something to hold the freehub body centre and the wheel does that admirably. There are many different interfaces for non-shimano hubs and finding something that will hold the centre is difficult otherwise.

cheers

[LittleGreyCat]

I was going to take you up on your kind offer of servicing the freehub.

It is a Sachs freehub (from the name on the dust covers) as discussed some time back.
I think that it is only ticking on one pawl, not two, and the whole assembly (including bearings) is very grubby.

I have searched t'Internet for advice on removing a Sachs freehub but nobody seems to be talking (or my search skills are not up to it).

I assume that there must be a standard way of removing the freehub and I was following the Big Blue Book in looking in from the left hand side because there wasn't an obvious spline or allen key fitting on the RHS.

I certainly can't find any instructions on how to service it in situ.
Briefly, there is the outer bit which turns (which takes a Shimano cassette) a "next bit in" which is slim, with two notches 180 degrees apart (that is, opposite each other) then a much thicker tube with what looks like splines at the centre around where the spokes meet the hub on the RHS.
I don't know if the two notches are there for a tool to help disassemble; that seems reasonable.

However, no tools and no knowledge currently.

[LittleGreyCat]

'99 SRAM dealers manual showing exploded view of Neos (cup and cone) and New Success (cartridge) hubs. Some of the shifters in the manual remain Sachs branded.

May assist as a guide, I don't doubt 531Colin when he says his Neos were cartridge bearing.

Just going back through the thread (most of which is over a year ago) and remembered this useful link.
The good news is that it shows the rear hub components on Page 35 of the PDF.
The bad news is that is says:

"Remove body bolt in the hub shell using a
12 mm hex and remove body (7)"

The "body" in the diagram looks to be the freehub I'm trying to remove. However an M12 spline bit just passes straight through the hole in the middle where the axle came out so the above instruction doesn't seem to work.

I can confirm that it is the cup and cone version of the hub.

[Brucey]

the cup part with the two notches unscrews on a LH thread and inside there are about fifty 1/8" balls, pawls and springs; basically like a standard freewheel but smaller. The clearance in the freewheel bearings can be adjusted on a shim stack. This arrangement is common with most freehub bodies

Oil may free it up but if the insides have gone rusty then the spring(s) can have failed. If there is slack in the bearings then the thing will wear at an ever-increasing rate whether the pawls are working or not.

I'm pretty sure I have a wheel with a sachs freehub on it somewhere; I can probably use that to hold yours with if you want me to service it.

You need a 12mm allen key, not an M12 spline bit to remove the freehub body.

cheers

[LittleGreyCat]

Thanks.
I was naively assuming that a 12mm Allen key and an M12 spline bit would have roughly the same overall diameter.
I will source a 12mm Allen key and give it a go.

[LittleGreyCat]

O.K. - I now have a hex key and it fits into something from the non-drive side (LHS). Can't get it to fit in from the RHS so I assume the LHS approach is correct.

I'm having a bit of trouble with my visualisation, but the freehub screws on clockwise on the drive side (RHS). That is, when being driven by the pedals the force is in a clockwise direction.
This implies that the freehub assembly has to move anti-clockwise to unscrew looking from the RHS, or conversely the inner bolt has to move clockwise looking from the RHS or anti-clockwise looking from the LHS (I think).

Assuming that you have to hold the freehub to unscrew the retaining bolt (or do you?) - then again - and at this point my visualisation fails.

Presumably the inner body of the freehub screws onto the retaining bolt inside the wheel hub so you should just hold the wheel and heave away. The direction of tightening by the freehub should just give a hint about which way you should undo the bolt?

So it looks as though, approaching from the LHS you should undo the retaining bolt with an anti-clockwise movement treating it as a right hand thread from that perspective.

However I don't think the PDF says anything specific about which way it should be undone. ||Which also implies that it is not a left hand thread.

I am reluctant to apply a lot of brute force until I am sure which direction I should be brute forcing.

Help?