Bicycle Mechanics - stuck lockring on Shimano cassette

I need to remove my cassette so I can replace a spoke (yeh, always the back wheel...) but I can't budge the lockring! I have the right removal tool and a sturdy vice to hold it in, so I SHOULD be able to get enough torque (if that's the proper term?). Anyway, I've taken the axle and bearings out just to ensure I'm getting the splines of the tool and the freewheel well engaged (they were due a regreasing anyway). I've put WD40 on and let it soak for 30 minutes -- won't budge. Then I soaked it with Gunk Liquid Wrench, tapped the lockring lightly with a wrench, and waited -- still won't budge. My plan now is to let it soak overnight, not having any other options unless you can give me some suggestions. Of course, at this time of the year, the LBSs laugh if you want them to do something in the next 4 weeks. Heat might help, but I don't have any sort of torch AND I'd be reluctant you use it anyway. Ideas, please? rcd

I need to remove my cassette so I can replace a spoke (yeh, always the back wheel...) but I can't budge the lockring! I have the right removal tool and a sturdy vice to hold it in, so I SHOULD be able to get enough torque (if that's the proper term?). Anyway, I've taken the axle and bearings out just to ensure I'm getting the splines of the tool and the freewheel well engaged (they were due a regreasing anyway). I've put WD40 on and let it soak for 30 minutes -- won't budge. Then I soaked it with Gunk Liquid Wrench, tapped the lockring lightly with a wrench, and waited -- still won't budge. My plan now is to let it soak overnight, not having any other options unless you can give me some suggestions. Of course, at this time of the year, the LBSs laugh if you want them to do something in the next 4 weeks. Heat might help, but I don't have any sort of torch AND I'd be reluctant you use it anyway. Ideas, please? rcd

Take it to a bikeshop.

Some of your description makes no sense whatsoever.

You`ve talked about a cassette, a freewheel a vice and a locking ring. If its a cassette you don`t use a vise to remove it - you need a chainwhip and a lock-on cassette remover to undo the lockring. If its a freewheel you`ll need a vice but there`s no locking ring - the whole freewheel comes off as a unit.

Sure you're not trying to tighten it? It's a right-hand thread so you need a chainwhip to hold the cassette so you can loosen it, and it's easiest to do with the wheel resting vertically on the floor. Assuming it's a cassette hub.

Freewheel or cassette? Your terminology is confusing. http://www.sheldonbrown.com/free-k7.html

I'm with Burton on this one. Take it to a shop.

Sure you're not trying to tighten it? It's a right-hand thread so you need a chainwhip to hold the cassette so you can loosen it, and it's easiest to do with the wheel resting vertically on the floor. Assuming it's a cassette hub.
For lockring removal I like to clamp the remover tool (mine have centering pins) in a bench vise with the pin facing up. Drop the wheel on it with the cassette facing down and apply the chainwhip. Even tight lockrings are easy to remove that way.

However, I once ran into a lockring so tight that it broke two chainwhips even after copious application of penetrating oil. I have no idea who installed it or how.

Strapping an Iron is another way to heat it instead of using a torch, this worked for me once with some cranks

I agree with the others. are you talking about a cassette or a freewheel? we need pics

I don't see anything in your original post to indicate a chainwhip or other tool is being used to hold the cogs. I never heard of putting a cassette tool in a vice like a freewheel tool.

Thanks for helping me sort out a confusion I didn't even no I suffered from! Essentially, I need to get the sprockets out of the way so I can rethread the spoke, and I've taken off seven or eight sprocket clusters on other bikes over the years. Certainly some of the ones I've worked on in the past had the freewheeling mechanism within the sprocket cluster, not a part of the hub, as I now see my current bike has (a 2001 Cannondale T800) But my technical vocabulary (and understanding) "down there" obviously left much to be desired! Thanks for helping me sort this out, especially for the link to Brown. It appears that I have a "Cassette with Lockring," the farthest right illustration under "Identification: Freewheel or Cassette" on the link. In fact, mine looks VERY similar to his illustration, and the ring (I use the term loosely) is marked Shimano HG, CSM760, has other barely legible stuff on it, but is also clearly has the "Lock" with a directional arrow after it and 40Nm, as does Brown's illustration. Soooo, what next? I'm ASSUMING -- and this might be where I'm dead wrong again -- that holding the FR-5 Shimano lockring tool in the vice has the same effect as using the chain whip. That is, it holds the cassette and sprockets so they don't spin backwards when I turn the wheel itself. Am I wrong about this? I figure the chain whip would not allow me as much of a hold as I can get with the tool locked in a vice, but please help me out here if I'm wrong! rcd

no you don't need a vice. of course I can't find a video on line. the cassette ring tool fits in the lockring. the chainwhip (shhh don't tell or largish channel lock pliers) are used to hold the cassette/cogs to avoid freewheeling while you turn the lockring counter clockwise to loosen.

I have not watched this yet but it may help.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9Oek25xKJ0

I agree with the otheres that you are doing it wrong, the vice hold the lock ring tool the chain whip prevents the sprockets from spinning when removing the lockring. If the sprockets don't spin when removing the lockring with out a chain tool then you are turning the lockring in the wrong direction and tightening the lockring.

Hillrider, maybe that is how the lockring got so tight on the one that you broke the chain tool on.

You still need to use a chain whip even with the tool in a vise or your tightening it. This will show you how to do it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9Oek25xKJ0&feature=related

You people are too fast.

Who said wisdom comes with experience? Yep, I was trying to remove the cluster as I had done on previous bikes, and was unaware of the development in hubs. So by putting the removal tool in a vice and turning the wheel the only way that provided any resistance, I was tightening what I wanted to be loosening! I had seen the Wheelie Pete video, but figured my old way with a vice was simply another way of holding things so the sprockets wouldn't spin. Anyway, now I can't get the lockring loosened using Wheelie Pete's method! And that's with all of yesterday's WD40 and Gunk (and, unfortunately, elbow grease in the wrong direction). Any suggestions before I drag the thing into an excessively busy bike shop and see if THEY have tools or a method that will loosen it? I value the education I'm getting here, but I'd rather be riding! Why didn't this happen in the winter when the LBS were empty? rcd

try what you see in the video and put a cheater bar (pipe) on your wrench to get the leavage you need to break it lose.

A chain whip and the lock tool with a 12" Cresent wrench should do it.

I've got a chain whip and a 12" crescent wrench on it, but it won't budge. The handle of the crescent wrench is too fat to go down a pipe I have, but I've tried an old socket driver that will fit down the pipe. With that arrangement, I'm too far away to hold the chain whip, while pushing on the pipe far enough down to get some leverage. Maybe I need to go enlist a neighbour to hold one while I haul on the other! And to think this all started with a broken spoke! Thanks for your thoughts.

are you turning left to loosen it?

I agree with the otheres that you are doing it wrong, the vice hold the lock ring tool the chain whip prevents the sprockets from spinning when removing the lockring. If the sprockets don't spin when removing the lockring with out a chain tool then you are turning the lockring in the wrong direction and tightening the lockring.

Hillrider, maybe that is how the lockring got so tight on the one that you broke the chain tool on.
Yeah, it's possible that's how it got overtightened. Some one tried to remove the lockring using a "freewheel removal method".



I never heard of putting a cassette tool in a vice like a freewheel tool.
It's a common technique. It holds the lockring tool steady while the chainwhip rotates the cogs to unthread the lockring. You do need a lockring tool with a center pin or you have to hold it in place with a qr skewer for stability.

yes, counter clockwise as in the excellent Wheelie Pete video posted above. If I held onto the spoke like Pete does, I'd rip another spoke out before anything budged. I suspect I was able to get WAY TOO much torque on the thing when I had the removal tool in the vice, and I was able to grip the wheel and turn it, unfortunately the wrong way. Sometimes (but not always, I hope) bike technology just moves faster than does my puttering about with broken things....) Still, though, I sure would like to get myself out of this mess my out-of-date understanding of bike technology has created. Thanks

lay wheel against legs/shins, cassette facing away from body. chain whip on left hand and wrench on the right hand. make the 2 tools parallel to the ground and lean on both with your body weight.

lay wheel against legs/shins, cassette facing away from body. chain whip on left hand and wrench on the right hand. make the 2 tools parallel to the ground and lean on both with your body weight.

+1
And you can use the skewer to lock the removal tool into the lockring so that it doesn't slip.

Given there are serrations under the lockring and you've hauled it up real tight (did you hear the serrations clicking?), there's a good chance you'll only wreck tools or injure yourself trying to get it off.

I reckon your best bet may be to just grind the lockring's outer flange off with an angle grinder and get a new one. You should be able to do it without damaging the freehub body, and if you're careful you won't damage the smallest cog either.

Given there are serrations under the lockring and you've hauled it up real tight (did you hear the serrations clicking?), there's a good chance you'll only wreck tools or injure yourself trying to get it off.


+1

If this were a plain old threaded item I'd say you could get it off the same way it went on. But those are not meant to be tightened in a vice, with the serrations and the fact that you need to hold the cassette with a chainwhip. You'll need the biggest strongest chainwhip ever AND a vice to even think about getting it off.

Actually, yeah - if you make a chainwhip from a bit of bar stock 3' long, you might stand a chance.

Making a chainwhip is easy. The bar/plate you make it from needs to be thin enough to fit between the outer plates of some chain, but I think you can use 1/8" chain with no worries, since it only sits on the biggest cog.

Yes, I definitely heard the serrations clicking the last time I hauled on the wheel with the removal tool locked in the vice. That's when I knew something was definitely wrong and got on bike forum, only to discover that the method I used many times in the past (and had the appropriate tools for) was absolutely wrong for the current and more modern hub. I 'm going to try once more to get it off with the tools I have, and then I'm just giving up and seeing if one of the crowded LBS can help me out sometime before August!


Given there are serrations under the lockring and you've hauled it up real tight (did you hear the serrations clicking?), there's a good chance you'll only wreck tools or injure yourself trying to get it off.

I reckon your best bet may be to just grind the lockring's outer flange off with an angle grinder and get a new one. You should be able to do it without damaging the freehub body, and if you're careful you won't damage the smallest cog either.

Such a long story deserves an ending! I took the wheel to an excellent but out-of-the-way one-man bike shop, and he gave it a go. No luck with anything he had to loosen the lock ring, so I left it overnight and picked it up today. His words were almost the same as Kimmo's. It had got to the point that he was either going to break his tools or hurt himself, so he trashed the lockring to get it off (I'm not quite sure how he trashed it, but at this point, I really don't care!) and installed a new one. He also sold me a removal tool that is slightly different from the one I had used to get myself into this mess. It seems that even though the fit of the free-wheel removal tool is very close with what is needed for the cassette free hub, they are not the same. So maybe all this trouble will help someone else? Anyway, thanks for all the excellent and helpful assistance you've provided here.

the method I used many times in the past (and had the appropriate tools for) was absolutely wrong for the current and more modern hub.

Well, actually, it wasn't the same method, cause you were turning the wheel the other way ; )

Just like to say that I found this page via google - I was trying to fit a new cassette for the first time, and using youtube as my guide, and the old one wouldn't shift. I'd come running in about 5 times to recheck I was turning the right way.

Anyway, I was luckier than rcd, the WD-40 (actually GT-85) did the trick. Spray, waited a few minutes, and then then thing loosened, just like in the video.

cheers

joan

I wish I got here a bit sooner. In my experience with lockrings people have overtightened a vise is useful. I like to have the axle in, and secure the lockring tool with a quick release skewer. Note, a freehub locking tool is close, but not the same as a freewheel tool, don't mix these. At this point lock the tool in a mounted bench vise, and put the chain whip on. This way you can just lean on the chain whip and the tool holds the wheel. I find this easier than trying to hold two tools (wrench and chain whip) when removing stuck lockrings.

Ok, I can barely get the lock-ring tool for the freehub seated in because the cone came loose. I put the sucker in a vise and even hammered the chain-whip but it won't budge.. spray some wd-40 on it, nothing.

Any more ideas?

I ripped the end-cap out through the lock-ring hole, inserted the qr skewer. Then, standing behind the tire I used a 3foot pvc pipe propped on the ground at 6 o'clock to hold the chainwhip and a 3 ft cheater pipe at 11 o clock to turn the lock-ring tool. I then held the tire down keeping the chainwhip in tension and wrenched down on the cheater pipe. et voila. Now to bend the end-cap back into shape.