shimano lockring confusion

[jnb]

I am a little confused by shimano lockring sizes.

The cassette on my bike is marked "Shiman HL", I have a shimano HG lockring remover which of course does not fit. So a quick search of amazon and halfords turns up loads of options some of which are marked as being Shimano HG fit and some of which are marked as just Shimano or universal. What fitting so I need for my cassette? Is HL the 'default' size? Will the 'Shimano' fitting fit onto the 'Shimano HL'?

[PT1029]

A photo, with age of bike/number of gears/teeth profile might help (teeth profile chainged at one point in the dim and retro past).
As far as I'm aware, all cassette lock rings have the same thread . The outer diameter does (or did) come in 2 sizes.
In the (retro to some) days of the early 90's, cassettes came with the small size of 13 teeth, with a lock ring that sat within the diameter of the chain running on the 13t sprocket.
When 11t top sprockets came along, they had to make the outer diameter of the lock ring smaller (if you put a 13t fit lock ring on an 11t sprocket, the chain jumped as it bottomed out on the lock ring, and wouldn't grip the teeth properly.
Wether this explains/amswers you question I don't know, as I'm not sure what the HL refers to.
I think they all have the same depth thread, but I know of some lock rings with deeper threads than others (made the difference between being able to lock a cassette on and not due to lack of thread). I don't recall if the differences were between Shimano lock rings of between different manufacturers
(Capreo - 9t top for 20" wheels - may be different?- not sure its so long since I looked at this).
I think the old Uni Glide lock rings have a (slightly) different spline fit to the current hyperglide tool. I'm sure others can be a bit more definative on this

[531colin]

Just to make life easier, there is also a Shimano screw-on block remover....
They look awfully similar to the cassette lockring remover.....but if you get them next to each other, the block remover has wide, shallow teeth, and the lockring tool has narrow, tall teeth.

[Brucey]

As Colin hints you probably have a screw-on shimano freewheel, not a shimano cassette. This means you need a shimano freewheel remover, rather than a shimano HG cassette tool.

If you look on Sheldon Brown's website you will find some info to help you tell the difference between a screw-on freewheel and a cassette.

BTW 'HL' is probably the date code for manufacture of the part you have.

cheers

[andrew_s]

Shimano cassette lockring and freewheel removers are very similar, and are often confused even by bike shops.
The spline pattern is the same, but the cassette remover has splines 1mm high, and the freewheel remover has splines 0.5mm high (and about 2 cm long).
The freewheel remover can usually be used on a lockring, but the lockring remover won't fit on a freewheel.

[jnb]

And the answer is that it is a freewheel and not a cassette. The specicalist bike shop to which I took it to get the right tools misidentified it and sold me a cassette lockring removal tool. Where did I go that gave me the correct advice and tool ... Halfords! So sometimes it seems that Halfords is better than your local bike shop (and they open on public holidays!)

Now I just have to figure out how to true it (relatively easy) without putting too much or too little tension on any spoke (not so sure how I do that).

[andrewjoseph]

Jmb,

You shouldn't need to take cassette off to true the wheel.

[jnb]

I didn't. I took the block off to replace a spoke. Now I need to true the wheel.

[531colin]

If its only off true because of a broken spoke, you should be able to replace the broken spoke and tension just that spoke to return to true, and the new spoke should be at the same tension as its friends.
Uneven tension should only become a problem if the wheel is a fair way off true for reasons other than a broken spoke....ie the rim is significantly off true.

[jnb]

Moved to here as the subject has drifted onto truing