bfromcolo

I am replacing my chain rings, chain and freewheel. Is everything good to go from a lubrication stand point, or should I lubricate the freewheel before installing it?

Sorry if this has been touched on before, every search I ran resulted in 500 hits and I could not find what I was looking for.

Thanks

MichaelW

Do you mean a rear freewheel, a freehub or just the sprockets?

bfromcolo

It's a 7 speed freewheel on an old Trek.

bfromcolo

Well either its not as dumb a question as I thought since no answered it, or its a really dumb question since no one answered it....

Let me try again. I am replacing the 7 speed free wheel on an old Trek road bike. Are these things lubricated from the factory or do I need do something before I install it?

Thanks

Evoracer

There's some Phil Wood goo that's good for quieting down the ratcheting mechanism if it's loud. But other than that, you're good to go.

MichaelW

A factory-new screw-on freewheel needs no lube. If you use it in harsh conditions you can flush all the gunk out with a squirt of wd40 (through the large-cog end) then drizzel some bike oil in the same gap.
Some higher end Sachs models were sealed and need no cleaning.

Sheldon Brown

It's quite important to lubricate the freewheel/hub threads but the freewheel mechanism is lubricated at the factory.

The freewheel is actually the least important bearing on the bike, because it only turns when you are coasting, and when you are coasting there's basically no load on the bearing.

See also: https://sheldonbrown.com/freewheels

Sheldon "Tick Tick Tick..." Brown

bfromcolo

Thanks!