Shinkers

Hey,

I'm converting my fat bike to single speed and ran into a situation.

The 10 speed cassette was jammed onto the freehub like a mother and no amount of pulling the cogs back with a couple chain whips was getting it off.

So I eventually resorted to using a flat blade screwdriver to pry individual cogs off of the cassette rivets.

Okay, so now the cassette is off, but I'm worried about getting my new cog ON.

I know this is a common issue and the damage is actually pretty minimal, but there is enough burr there to be a PITA. Can you just hit really quick with a file or even some sandpaper?

Thanks.

dabac

Think about this:
if you were putting enough torque into the drivetrain to get that bad notching while using a full cassette - where the rivets do help a little to spread the force between the splines and the tabs - how do you think the parts will survive when using a single sprocket?


Apart from that, filing the burrs down is perfectly fine as a fix.


I've seen thin steel strips sold as a remedy to that situation, to be placed between sprocket tab and f/h body spline on the pressure side. Might want to look into that.
Or, if possible, to replace the (assumed) aluminum f/h body with a steel one.

cs1

It looks like a standard Shimano steel free hub body. There must have been something wrong, like in seriously wrong, to burr a steel free hub. Personally I would try to fix that first. Good luck.

dsaul

Its fine to file down the burrs. Get a single speed cog with a wide base, like the Gusset Double Six cogs, to prevent any problems with the single cog digging into the aluminum freehub body.

joejack951

According to the info I can find, the FH-502 is an aluminum freehub body. If the cassette cogs weren't tightened properly, you can easily gouge a non-steel body like that. With super-low gearing like some MTBs (and presumably fatbikes) use, you can probably do the same thing to a properly tightened stack of cogs.

Shinkers

Freehub is aluminum and the cassette was tightened properly. Low gear was 22/36 and I figure that's probably why it did that.

I will be using a singlespeed cog.

Retro Grouch 

I wouldn't worry about it excessively.

If it was my bike I'd take a fine file to the little divots so that my new cog would slide on a little more conveniently. Then, while I was enjoying my new single speed I'd keep an eye out for a trashed rear wheel. One will show up, trust me. Pop the freehub body off of that to save for use if and when your aluminum freehub body dies.