Originally Posted by
yukiinu
I had a habit of "lubricating" my chain by spraying wd40 on it as it passed over freewheel. It leaked into the freewheel and destroyed the freewheel greese and my freewheel. I had to walk my loaded bike 60 miles to a bike shop.
I really doubt that WD-40 use caused your freewheel to seize. You would need to use a huge amount of it in a very specific locations for it to get into the freewheel. The red arrows below point to where you would have to direct the spray
and the wheel would likely need to be sitting with the freewheel pointing up to get the WD-40 to flow through the
mechanism. (The red arrow on the left should be pointing to the back of the freewheel rather than a cog.)
Over time freewheels will seize for various reasons. They aren’t very heavily lubricated and water can replace that lubricant over time. Often, WD-40 can be used to get a freewheel to roll more easily. The solvent evaporates and the oil in the WD-40 will remain behind.
