Originally Posted by
wphamilton
Crankset = $$$ relatively speaking but freewheels are cheap. You'd need to buy the tool to get it off, else a shop will charge you double if they do it. After a while I bought a cheap freehub wheel on Amazon, the Shimano cassette tool, and any Shimano compatible cassette.
Compatibility with the shifters is not an issue.
What would happen if the freewheel had say 8 cogs on it when the rear shifter only has 7 indexed shift points? Unlike the front shifter that is friction based, the rear seems to have fixed numbered increments.