overly free freewheel

souter

Hi, I've noticed a couple times that when starting out my freewheel freewheels in both direction. Jiggle it back and forth a few times and starts working properly.
My thinking is that the pawl must be sticking in disengaged position somehow, but once it's engaged it'll be as secure as ever.
I'm also thinking that Sheldon Brown counsels against ever opening up a free wheel (and I recall from personal experience in the distant past them being a PITA to open up).
So I'm thinking of living with it unless it becomes much more frequent.
Am I being dangerously complacent here?

kona

souter wrote: »

Hi, I've noticed a couple times that when starting out my freewheel freewheels in both direction. Jiggle it back and forth a few times and starts working properly.
My thinking is that the pawl must be sticking in disengaged position somehow, but once it's engaged it'll be as secure as ever.
I'm also thinking that Sheldon Brown counsels against ever opening up a free wheel (and I recall from personal experience in the distant past them being a PITA to open up).
So I'm thinking of living with it unless it becomes much more frequent.
Am I being dangerously complacent here?

The worst that will happen you will just lose drive. More of a pain in the hole that dangerous.

How much is a new one? couldnt be more than e20, or is this a fancy one:D

souter

kona wrote: »

How much is a new one? couldnt be more than e20, or is this a fancy one:D

<facepalm>Err, not much - just realised I have spare at home already </facepalm>

doozerie

souter wrote: »

So I'm thinking of living with it unless it becomes much more frequent.
Am I being dangerously complacent here?

For info, yes you would be taking a chance by continuing to use it. I had the same issue with a freehub at one stage, when it very briefly slipped once while pedalling. Based on the fact that it had seen very little use by then, and was (should have been!) a good quality one, I decided that it was just a "once off" and continued to use it. Next time it happened was when I was out of the saddle on a climb and by sheer (unhappy!) coincidence a lorry was overtaking me at the time. One second there was resistance under my right foot but the next second, and while my foot was at the top of the revolution and therefore I was pushing down hard on the pedal, there was no resistance at all and the crank basically dropped - my weight was thrown to the right and the bike wobbled badly and veered towards the wheels of the truck. Luckily I was able to control the bike enough to avoid being mashed, but it was a very near miss. It was also lucky that I was on the outside of the group I was with as otherwise I may have pushed the person beside me under the truck. The freehub was fine for the rest of the ride.

I tried to sort the problem out by feeding lots of oil into the freehub, in the hope that there was some grit lodged in there that was causing the problem and that I could dislodge it. The freehub worked fine for the next few weeks but I really was pushing my luck. The next time it went was when I was coming down a descent and pushing a high gear to build up more speed - having a freehub slip in those circumstances isn't as bad as it occurring while out of the saddle but it is close enough. Again though, I was fortunate enough to stay on the bike. When I got home, the freehub went straight in the bin, at speed! It's just not worth taking a chance with a freehub that has started to act up.

trad

It's more than likely there is dirt or rust clogging the freewheel mechanism. Get parafin oil or WD40, Take off the back wheel, place it on it's flat with some newspaper under it and generously pour the parafin/ wd40 into the freewheel whilst turning the freewheel. Make sure it goes in around the lockring and, like the ad for Surf on the tv, expect splashes all over your clothes if you are too enthusiastic. You should quickly see the grimey oil coming out of of the freewheel accompanied by a much louder click of the pawls. When all the parafin /wd40 drains out use some light bicycle oil and oil the freewheek regularly.

If that doesn't work, chuck it in the bin.

alfalad

This happened me a coupple of weeks back and it was the spring in the hub that pushes the pawls back into the engaged position that broken. Not a big job to fix for someone with the knowledge and tools so i'd advise just bringing it to your bike shop!

kona

IMO Its a false economy to "fix" a broken freewheel, when they are such a cheap part.
I know if sombody asked me to open one up and fix it, Id tell them to just buy a new one, as its cheaper, newer and has a warranty.

Ant

I was one of the people who disregarded Sheldon’s advice but successfully followed his directions on repairing freewheels. I opened a freewheel to clean out the pawls and the ball bearings as one of the pawls was jammed with grit. It took ages to put it back together as those ball bearings are damn small and tricky to keep track of. A needle-nose pliers comes in handy for putting them back in place.

However, this was about 10 years ago when I was in my “I want to know how every part of my bike works and fits together” (engineering curiosity) and “bike parts aren’t disposable; they’re designed to be repaired” (environmentalist) phases. These days, my spare time is more precious and I’d agree with kona that anybody with a dodgy freewheel is better off just replacing it – unless they’re actually interested in exploring the innards of their bike.

souter

I will replace the freewheel and disect the old one out of curiosity. Even better I'll flip it back to the fixed sprocket - damn those fancy pants freewheel and their cutting edge technology.