Originally Posted by
bcoppola
Poking around on Sheldon's site, I finally found this in his bicycle glossary under
spacing:
126 mm Rear 6- and 7-speed (road).
130 mm Rear 7-speed (MTB) and 8- 9- and 10-speed (road).
...which seems to imply that there were indeed 'road' and 'mountain' 7 speed freewheels - the latter requiring 130mm spacing. Or, at least, that not all 7 speed freewheels were made for 126mm spacing as I had erroneously assumed. I know there were also 130mm 7 speed freehub/cassettes since I have one on my beater Trek MTB.
The 130mm 7 speed spacing you see listed was for 7 sp. mtb cassette hubs at the time, which was later changed to 135mm with 8 sp. cassettes, not for freewheel hubs. To this day people are using 7 speed FW's on 126mm spaced dropouts. There is no mtb freewheel!
Your hubs have been spaced for a 5 or six speed freewheel. My old Stumpjumper had 126mm spacing on the frame, but was limited to a 5 speed or Ultra 6 freewheel. If I wanted a normal 6 sp or 7sp..... My choices were to either re-space the hub and re-dish the wheel, or spread the rear triangle and get a longer axle with some more spacers on the hub so I could use a wider freewheel. I chose the latter.
To the best of my knowledge, that's your choice.