Hi all. I am new to doing my own wrenching. I got my hands on an older GT Outpost (1997) that is some serious need of renovation/TLC. I have done about all of the stuff that I know how to do, but I am having some issues with the rear wheel and the freehub and cassette. Here's the deal. The original setup is Shimano Deore. The cassette is shot (not surprisingly) and I need to put a new one on. Here is the thing. These are all individual cogs and they are on a staggered hub, meaning that half of the hub is wider than the other half. I could go about looking for a cassette to match it - which seems to me that it might be problematic - or I could replace it with a new hub/freehub/cassette. Amazingly, the hub seesm to be in pretty good condition - but MTB hubs aren't real expensive, so I am at a crossroads.
a) Can I replace the freehub without replacing the hub of the wheel?
b) Is it worth it to replace the freehub alone when hubs seem to be available for fairly cheap?
c) Is there anything that is going to cause me problems that I am probably not considering since my experience working on or building wheels is pretty much the same as a ground squirrels?
Just buying a whole new wheel kind of defeats the purpose of this exercise as my plan is to spend time wrenching this bike to learn about things.
What ya got??