Bicycle Mechanics - Bad freewheel ?

I'll do my best to try and put into words the trouble I'm having - I'm getting a "clunking" type noise that I suspect might be coming from the freewheel on my Schwinn Madison single speed. I can get the sound to go away with a quick back pedal for a rev or two. Then it comes back again if I coast or back pedal again. Then, the cycle repeats as stated.

The best way I can desribe the sound is a repeated clunk. Could this be the freewheel? Something else? The bike is new and has been doing this since day one. I suspect from the price of the bike that the freewheel is not the highest grade... Thanks.

This is a single speed, right? i'd say it's an alignment issue.

Search the forum. There are plenty of posts about this sort of thing. I had the same issue with a Shimano SS freewheel and resigned myself to the clunking. It's related to the bearing slop tolerance. You could try to disassemble and take out a shim, but I found that this made the bearings too tight. The clunking doesn't seem to affect its function though. The White Industries freewheels are built to better tolerance and do not clunk.

-G

+1, toss it and get a new one and a new chain too..

White has Trials &Polo freewheels too,
more pawls so it engages in about 5 couple degrees.

often after backpedaling a freewheel will use a different pawl/tooth combination when reengaged. a noise, most likely from poorly aligned pawls and teeth in the freewheel, will create this rhythmic noise. coasting will temporarily stop the noise if a "good" combo results. it's hit or miss.

fix is to buy a different freewheel. i have recently been purchasing what i think is a nice compromise between, price, availability, and quality. it's the ACS Crossfire model.

Thanks for the replies everyone. I had already purchased an ACS Crossfire in a different tooth count as I was planning on changing gearing anyways. I just haven't gotten around to having it installed by my LBS as I wanted to see if the noise was possibly from this or something different. I'll get it swapped out this weekend. Thanks again.