Bicycle Mechanics - Wobbly rear gear cluster; what to do?

Hello. The gear cluster on my rear tire wobbles as the tire turns and I don't know if this is indicative of a major problem or not.

The rim spins straight without wobble, but as it spins (gear cluster is stationary and rim is spinning) the gear cluster wobbles like a coin does when the coin is spun and falls over, just about to stop. Like the gear cluster is on a tilted axis that is different from the axle axis. The gear cluster itself is also solid and I cannot physically make it wobble or budge at all to align with the proper axis.

Anyone heard of this and do you know what can be done? Before taking my rear hub apart I was hoping to get some info about this problem. I use the bike daily to commute so I'd like to know a little bit about what I'm looking for before going to work, to minimize downtime.

Any ideas? Any help is appreciated. :)

As long as it doesn't affect the shifting, this is pretty normal for old freewheel-type hubs. They almost all do it to some extent.

You need to provide more information like do you have a freewheel or cassette hub. How many gears on the rear? Approximately the age.

Thank you for the info; that's good to know! :)

The wobbling doesn't affect shifting, but should I worry about his problem getting worse?

It's a freewheel with 5 gears. Probably 5 years old or so.

Just to add another confirmation of what has already been said, I don't think I have ever seen a single one that doesn't have that wobble. I did spend some time trying to figure it out the first time I saw it, but nothing seemed to be wrong and it doesn't cause problems.

Thank you for that info! I'll leave it be then. Like I said, it doesn't affect my biking so I'm happy with that. :)