Originally Posted by
Greyryder
I had an ACS start slipping on me, with only about 30 miles on it. From what I've been seeing, They're rapidly gaining a reputation for being junk. The problem seems to be that the factory in India isn't putting enough oil in them, or something. (kind of ironic, considering the state of the packaging mine came in) I'd only recommend the Claws, if you have a lock ring tool, so you can open the freewheel up, and get some light oil into it, before you ride it. A little bit of oil seemed to solve the slipping problem in mine, which got me by until the better freewheel I ordered came in. It also seemed to quiet it down, a bit.
I'd suggest biting the bullet, and paying the extra for a White Industries freewheel. I balked at the price, when I first saw it, and bought an ACS. Three days later, I ordered the White. It's well worth its price. It's got a sealed bearing, and it's the only freewheel I've ever seen that runs concentric. (no more tight spots!) It engages as quickly as the ACS, which was one of the few things I like about my Claws freewheel.
A freewheel would start slipping if all the pawls failed to engage, so a lack of sufficiently light lubricant would indeed be the most likely solution. It would seem, if what you're telling is generally true, that the ACS freewheels are nowadays packed in too heavy grease, which under a non-hot climate would be just a bit too thick and keep the pawls in the contracted (disengaged) position.
Two comments: you don't necessarily need to disassemble the freewheel to fix this problem: put the whole freewheel in a shallow container filled with a nonpolar solvent (perhaps acetone, or hexane, or very light mineral turpetine) and let it soak for a few days, perhaps with rotating the cog a few times, to facilitate the access of the solvent to the grease. After you pull it out from the solvent, immerse the freewheel in a similar container, but this time filled with a light lubricant, and leave it like that for about half an hour - just make sure you turn the cogs several times. Extract the cog from the lubricant, let the excess lubricant flow out, dry it with a cloth and voilá, you got yourself an excellent freewheel, without disassembly.
As for the tool that you need for disassembly, you don't want to use a lockring tool!
You need a pin spanner.