I have the old rims off my Falcon of England They are Rimtec 190SA rims, made by Mavic. 36 hole eyeleted rims. Hubs are Maillard of France. The rear hub currently has a 6 speed shimano MF-Z012 freewheel.

Are freewheels still available and what is the highest number of gears one can get on a freewheel. Another forum member is interested in the rear wheel for use on his trainer if it can be made 10 speed compatible.

the hub is Maillard but not Helicomatic, right?

You can put any freewheel with the right threading. It may have French threading and that is a big issue. https://www.sheldonbrown.com/freewheels.html

maximum number of cogs is 7-8 because that is the highest count of cogs on a freewheel I've seen, otherwise is limited only by the frame spacing of rear drops (but can be cold set to another dimension)

If it's helicomatic, than use whatever you can find for helicomatic, is quite rare and extinct, so as the French threading for freewheels.

Not Helicomatic. Thanks for the anwer.

While 8 speed freewheels are out there, word is they are prone to breaking axles. 7-speed freewheels are everywhere.

I've never seen a French threaded freewheel on anything but a French bike, and many of the French bikes had english freewheel threading (most all sold in the U.S. did).

Yes it's most probable with ISO thread, but also can be french, the difference is so little but can do much damage as Sheldon Brown says: "A French freewheel may start to thread onto an ISO/British/Italian hub but will soon bind. An ISO/British/Italian freewheel will skim the top of the threads of a French hub and will slip forward if an attempt is made to use it. Do not force a freewheel -- you will ruin the hub"

The easiest way to tell if it's ISO or french: after you remove the freewheel look on the lip of the threaded freewheel (on the side with largest cog) there it should say something like: 1.375 x 24 tpi (this is ISO/British), or 1.366" x 25.4 tpi (French)

If the current wheel has a Shimano FW, it's not a french threaded FW. Being that it's a 6 sp FW, I wouldn't mess with it do add a 7sp FW to it. IRD sells 6sp. 13-24/28/32.

For a trainer use, then it really doesn't matter if you redish the wheel, but a 12t is the lowest FW cog you're going to find, and no one makes them new.

And no, this wheel is not 10sp compatible! That's cassette only. The thing is, for trainer use you only need a few gears, certainly not 10. Think about it

Not all freewheels are marked, unfortunately, and a French thread freewheel is likely to have metric markings, if it has them at all: 34.7 x 1.0mm

Thanks for the reply.

I was wondering more about shifter compatibility, spacing, cable pull. I know such things are an issue, but I do not know enough to answer this myself. So if the forum member who is interested in the wheel has Shimano 10 speed shifters, takes this wheel and puts a new 7 or 8 speed freewheel on it, should he be able to expect the bike to shift normally through the available gears?

The wheels were on a Falcon of England Europa that I bought second hand the and the freewheel that is on there is pretty rusty. I cleaned it up as much as I could when I bought the bike, and actually put quite a few miles on it prior to upgrading the drive train to a new Shimano 105 group and Mavic Open Pros.

Indexing isn't up my alley, so hopefully someone else knows. I suspect it would work with a modern IRD or Shimano FW, but not positive.

A 7sp freewheel will not index with 10sp shifters. He would need to have shifters with friction mode.

https://www.ctc.org.uk/DesktopDefault.aspx?TabID=3946

I've got a few spare 7-sp freewheels if you want any of them, I work new LBJ and Stemmons.

What brand and what cog count do you have?

You can get 8 and 9 speed freewheels... they tend to get used on specific hubs and drives like the Bionx power assist (9speed) but these are very prone to axle breakage.

The frame builder I work with uses 8 speed thread on freewheels for his custom hubs and his design is very solid and is touring and tandem capable butr would admit a preference for 7 speed thread ons as these are even stronger.