I doubt it. I'm not at all unfamiliar with freewheels and have had to remove a number of them destructively. All of them are either 2 or 4 pronged Suntours. The 4 prong version is even worse at shearing off the prongs of the freewheel than the 2 prong version although the 2 prong version is more likely to shear off the prongs of the tool.

If you use the locking nut or QR to hold the tool in place there is a less chance of the tool ' s prongs and /or the freewheel 's slots getting damage .

My feelings about working on freewheels is the same as those of [MENTION=21724]cyccommute[/MENTION]. I also overhauled one or two and came to the same conclusion. Yes, I can do it, but there's no good reason to do it. There is a guy who does it as a hobby, and he refurbishes freewheels, too. More power to him. I wouldn't recommend anyone do it unless it's a fun hobby for them.

My point is if this is done correctly the removal isn't a destructive process, although the choice to try to restore the prongs is another matter...

True, but that doesn't help with the ones that have already been boogered up...

Yup. Doing for the sake of doing, even when it's clear things are being made up.

I take it you two know each other... ;)

And the Regina-style notches are inferior to either of the SunTour designs. Bottom line is that pronged remover design is inferior to the splined design introduced by Zeus and later adopted by Regina, Atom, and eventually (in a different enough spec to require a separate remover), Shimano.

Great in theory. But in practice the Suntour freewheel often shear off the tool or the prongs. It's a very bad design. I see a lot of them in my local co-op and we have a drawer full of ruined two prong tools.

There was another recent thread on freehwheel removal.

http://www.bikeforums.net/classic-vi...el-rescue.html

The idea is that if you remove the outer couple of sprockets, then remove the axle, you have good access to the notches. I wouldn't have cut new notches, but rather just cut the old ones to be roughly even.

Put the left bearings and axle back in. ALWAYS TIGHTEN THE AXLE DOWN TIGHT... QUITE TIGHT ONTO YOUR FREEWHEEL REMOVAL TOOL. You then loosen as it unscrews. I usually use a big wrench with the tool, but the tool in a vice may be a bit safer to give even tension on the tool.

Preaching to the choir...if I had to use freewheels;)

Na. He's just a Forums stalker. I ignore him...literally.

Sometimes you can use the skewer and some washers to hold the removal tool tight to the freewheel. You have to of course loosen things as the freewheel starts to loosen. This one may be to far gone for that maybe.

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