i was reinstalling the freewheel on my rear hub today after replacing a spoke. It became cross-threaded and did some slight damage to the threads on the hub. i've been tryin to re-thread it on correctly but am having trouble as now it keeps wanting to cross-thread because of the damaged threads.

anyone have any advice on how to get this threaded correctly? can i repair the thread anyway?

this is an original shimano hub from my all original 1975 Sekine SHT so i really really really don't want to have to scrap it.

thanks