I have a Fuji mountain bike that I bought back in late 87 or early 88. It has a 6 speed uniglide cassette. When I can't find a replacement cassette on ebay, I'm trying to figure out what my options are. This bike is my winter/foul weather commuter, so there's no sentiment involved, and I doubt it would be of particular interest to the vintage enthusiasts. Is there any way to go other than rebuilding the wheel with a new hub/new cassette and adding new shifters? (The shifters switch from index to friction, so I guess I could go with the existing ones if cash was really tight - my wife has this warped sense of priorities that places feeding the children above new bike gear.) I'm trying to get a sense of whether the cost to upgrade would be warranted, or if I should just go ahead and replace the whole bike. Thanks for any advice.

So your cassette is toast?

If you're ok with friction shifting, virtually ANY old 26" wheel off craigslist should work just fine, whether it be cassette or freewheel, 5,6,7 or 8 speed. That might be the cheapest.

But since you have a Uniglide cassette, there's a free way to get a "new" cassette! Just take the cogs off and flip them over. Sheldon Brown writes: https://www.sheldonbrown.com/k7.html

Did you ever have one of those situations where you get an answer to a question, and it's so obvious that you couldn't figure out how you had so much trouble figuring it out? And then you realize it was because you were asking the wrong question?

I kept asking myself "how can I replace my uniglide hub, when they don't even sell 6 speed cassettes anymore? What kind of shifters am I going to need, etc." When really, the question I should have been asking was "how can I keep riding this bike for cheap?"

Just switch the shifter to friction, and I'm good with any wheel. Except for making me feel like an idiot for missing the glaringly obvious, thanks for the solution. So for the cost of a new wheel I'm good to go indefinitely. (Or until I convince the wife that a new bike is more important than feeding the kids. One of them is pretty skinny, so he's got to be fed, but the other two have some nutritional inertia on them - they could go without long enough for me to get a decent bike.)

Happens all the time... I'm trying to get better though.

But before you buy a new wheel, I'd at least try flipping the cogs over to see how that works. As Sheldon points out, the cogs with spacers can't be flipped, but that should only be the smallest one or two on your cassette.

Put up a wanted ad in your local CL bike section (not wanted section). I have a pile of old mtb wheels in my basement and if you were local I'd just give you one. I'm sure there are many extra wheels to be had for little $ in Philly, as well.

The hyperglide tooth profiles are on all screw on freewheels with 5 6 7 cogs, these days .
whether you want them or not.
[8 spd fw wont fit so forget that.]