stien

Just came across a Schwinn Super Sport with RX100 indexed shifting, 7 speed. No wheels though. Do I have to track down a shimano FW or can I use another kind and keep indexing?

Also, what threading am I looking at? The wheel I want to use has a Suntour FW on it now, forget the model. Shall I go out to the garage?

rccardr 

Any 126 wheel will work fine. Suntour spacing is a little different (I think) for 7 speed. But 7 speed Shimano FW's are cheap and easy to find.

stien

Dang, you're right! $20 for a 7s HG FW from Harris. Score.

unworthy1

since I don't know: are the popular after-market FWs (like IRD and Falcon/Nashbar/SunRace) spaced like Shimano? How about Sachs?

Jeff Wills

AFAIK, the current crop of 7-speed freewheels match the Shimano "standard", as does Sachs: https://www.sheldonbrown.com/k7.html#spacing . The only potential problem child is Suntour Ultra-7.

top506

7-speed Shimano cassette will work as well.
Shimano, Sun Race, Falcon, Sachs/Aris, and IRD will all work.
The Sun Race freewheels are a lot of bang for the buck; they are the OEM for the Nashbar and Performance freewheels.

Top

stien

Well I sorta have an odd pair of mismatching tubular wheels hanging around and I'm probably just going to use those for now. I never see 6-7 cassette wheels around here at least.

sykerocker 

7-speed Shimano has a 5.0mm pitch (spacing) between cogs, both freewheel and cassette. This is matched by 6-speed Mailliard Helicomatic and 8-speed Campagnolo cassette. 8-speed Shimano cassette is 4.8mm pitch. Virtually all 7-speed freewheels available nowadays match the Shimano. Conversely 5 and 6-speed freewheels use a 5.5mm pitch.

sykerocker 

There's a good reason for that: 6 and 7-speed cassette wheels are good for that, and that only. Meanwhile, an 8-speed rear hub (which will also handle a 9 or 10-speed cassette) will handle a 7-speed cassette by adding an easy to get spacer before dropping the cassette on the hub. It takes up the space of the low gear on an 8-speed setup.

I've never seen a 6-speed cassette, although I understand they do exist.

Old Fat Guy

I have a number of 6 speed Dura Ace cassettes. The early 7400 was a six speed freehub.

stien

Good info, thanks. Another thing I didn't know. I may pick up a cheap 8/9/10 wheelset now.

repechage

I think you are blurring the EX free hub and the 7400 group. The 7400 group was the big redesign, and came with SIS index shifting. Freehub and freewheel alternatives, 7 speed. At least that was all we ordered. The freehubs were slow to catch on, guys had money invested in race wheels, and were still skeptical of Shimano bearings.

Old Fat Guy

I am not blurring the EX and 7400. I bought, in 1984, the first generation group of 7400. It is SIS indexed 6 speed cassette Uniglide. I still have a wheelset. I replaced my Dura Ace AX with it, and used a spacer on the AX behind the largest cog to use it a a six speed indexed hub. 7401 was 7 speed, 7402 was 8 speed, 7400 was 6 speed. I'll take pictures, if need be.

RobbieTunes

I just pulled a wheel off of a bike (thanks, pastorbob) that was a Shimano Hyperglide 7-sp freehub/cassette. I had to read it twice, because I was not aware of that; only thought the 7-sp was Uniglide or spaced out.

And I have a 7400 6-sp indexed DA group here, including the wheels. It's a freewheel. Shimano sure didn't keep it simple.

sykerocker 

I get the feeling that, back then, the market was in such technological flux, that nothing was simple. I'd love to see a day-by-day calendar of all the manufacturers covering, say, 1983-1987, listing who brought out what and when, and (probably more importantly) what went out of production during that time.

sykerocker 

My Rossin is the same thing, 7400 Dura-Ace, 6-speed freewheel. And it's totally Dura-Ace, seatpost to hubs. Spent a fair bit of time coming up with all the matching parts when I was building it.

I'd love to see a Uniglide 6-speed cassette and matching hub. I've always guessed that the hub had room for the 7-speed cassettes, too.

sykerocker 

My replica Mavic neutral support bike is running Mavic Ksyrium's and Shimano RSX (all but the latest produced were 7-speed). It works real fine. I'm currently working on taking my two other modern bikes to 9-speed to match the gearing on my Trek Pilot.

Old Fat Guy

No, it does not. I'll take some pictures in the daylight for the skeptics.

sykerocker 

I'd appreciate it. Another little bit of the lost years comes to light.

Jeff Wills

Nope. The six-speed bodies wouldn't take 7 cogs.

FWIW: I have a 7-speed Dura-Ace AX cassette hub (as seen here) on one of my sets of wheels. It still works great.

I'd still like to get my hands on a couple sets of the 600EX cassette hubs from that era. They were available in small- and large-flange, 5 and 6-speed. Lookee here: https://www.sheldonbrown.com/shimano1982/pages/24.html

Sixty Fiver

Have not seen many 6 speed cassettes but they are out there... friend had a DA 6 speed on his Apollo road bike which was a full DA build.

Old Fat Guy

I had a set of DA AX cassette hubs that I sold to a forum member. I could never get them to index with seven speed SIS, but used them as 6 speed by putting spacers behind the big cog.

I will get pictures of a 6 speed cassette hub up today.