Originally Posted by
ctmullins
Are you sure? Five-speed is generally 120mm OLD, while the "normal" six and the "narrow" seven are both 126mm OLD. You can spread steel stays to accommodate, but you may need to lengthen the drive side of your hub axle with spacers.
That said, I love old SunTour freewheels, but recently switched to ramped freewheels, one Shimano and one SunRace. I don't care for the way Shimano mounts the two largest cogs via rivets to the smaller ones. But they both shift really well.
Spacing is 126. I swung by the LBS on Saturday and we put a 6 and 7 speed fw up to it and they were just slightly wider than the current 5 speed and plenty of space to the dropout. Problem was they were the only 2 he had, I didn't want the 6 speed because I figure if I change I might as well go to 7 and the 7 speed was a 14-34 megarange which pretty much means a different derailler that I do not have.
I was reading a little on the Sheldon Brown site and re-centering the axle, spacers, etc all seemed pretty straightforward. It did mention redishing is not really needed going from 5 to 6 or 6 to 7 but that I should going from 5 to 7. Is that really critical?
It sounds like either the Shimano or Sunrace is adequate. Which is quieter? The Suntour i'm running now is whisper silent and I like the "Ninja" surprise when I overtake modern CF riders on my steel steed
