'sup, all!

well, tonight i had my first major mechanical.




i ride...rode a six speed. the fifth cog, well half of it at least, cracked right off of the freewheel. in the hopes it would ride i tried shifting the injured bike into a different gear and it caught. sweet! hopped on, tested it out and it rode fine. the rest of the cog dropped off somewhere else along the ride; good thing i still have the old freewheel from my road bike. and, that begs the question; i've ridden the SR freewheel on my ST500 before. it works fine. shifts well, but the chain ticks on every tooth. the road freewheel seems much sharper. i assume that either the chain will wear and the clicking will stop, or the teeth on the freewheel will wear down resulting in the same outcome. i'm worried that the chain will take the brunt of the damage here and break. it's already jumping on the smallest cog since the mechanical tonight. i can't load for a sprint on it without it jumping every other revolution or two. since the chain is already jumping should i even try combining it with a sharper freewheel?

wow. was letting off some steam. not the best ride home.....

the group is suntour, the extra freewheel i have is shimano. figured i'd ask for some advice as to the combination of the two. but, nevermind.

clearly, me getting a freewheel off isn't the problem if i happen to have an extra. right?

do me a favor, don't reply to any threads of mine anymore. i can tell i won't be getting much help from you.

I'd suggest a new freewheel and a new chain to go with it. For 6speed is quite cheap.

Another approach is if you have more freewheels at hand. The cogs on the freewheels are threaded onto the one way mechanism and you can unthread them and mix and match your own cassette - but it's such a hassle that may not worth it, and the threads on the freewheel cogs are not standard.. at 6speed you have lots of brands like Atom, regina, suntour, shimano, etc.

But given a larger stash of freewheels to have all the correct part, mix and match sprockets onto them was common practice in the 80-90's - beware that it's a PITA to remove the cogs from the freewheel, you need a large bench vise and a very large chain whip and a hammer of your choice

https://sheldonbrown.com/freewheels.html

If it's a freewheel then spacing between the gear cogs will be equidistant, and Suntour isn't indexed for shifters, that I remember, so it doesn't matter. Your shifters are friction shifters, correct? As The ARS put it, just change the freewheel out rather than trying to rebuild it. He could have put it a bit more gently, but he's correct as far as what to do.

Pibber, Replace the freewheel and chain for the best results.

Brad

The chain won't break but allowing one to wear to the other may not occur or will take a very long time. Measure the chain (and while you are at it learn about chain/cog wear). If needed replace it, and then if needed replace the freewheel as well.

That was my first thought, to switch them out. Strangely enough, the shifters are only indexed for the RD and friction for FD.

See, this is why i joined this site. Thanks for steering me in the direction of some info/ejumacashun.

I knew that cassettes threaded together, but i had never thought of making your own "blend" of gears. That's cool, thanks!

Thanks for the info, everybody. I was more concerned that the Shimano wouldn't work with the Suntour group, but it seems like it will.

Getting a new freewheel will do ya worlds of good- the modern ones have shifting ramps and cutouts that make everything just work better and smoother. None of the ticking you find on the other freewheel. Plus, with a new freewheel, treat yourself to a new chain; an old chain wears out a new freewheel and an old freewheel will wear out a new chain. You can probably get it done for under $20 in parts.

yeah, i'm gonna do that. it's time. i have no idea how many miles are on the chain and the skip on the small cog really irritates me.

Pibber, With the SR up and running it maybe a good time to overhaul the ST?

Brad

On DT shifters, that's normal (index rear, friction front). Assuming your levers are Suntours, they do not index well with Shimano freewheels (different spacing). NOS Suntour freewheels are VERY expensive.

Give it a try, and if you don't like it, switch to friction mode.

I have one bike set up with Suntour indexing levers and rear derailleur, and a Shimano freewheel. Indexes OK, not great for sure.

From Sheldon's site, in my case, I wanted to keep my Superbe Pro RD, so changing the RD was not an option (I would rather go friction at that point):

[h=3]Mixed Sun Tour/Shimano Indexing[/h] Sun Tour indexed shifters pull less cable per shift than Shimano systems use. Thus, generally, you need to match Sun Tour indexed shifters with Sun Tour rear derailers. However, it turns out that Sun Tour 6-speed shifters index pretty well with 7-speed clusters if you replace the old Sun Tour rear derailer with a Shimano unit!
The mismatch in cable travel cancels out the mismatch between 6 and 7 speeds. There won't be a "click" for the lowest gear, but the derailer's low-gear limit stop will provide the "indexing" for that gear.

i did an upgrade to my SR500(started a thread about that a couple weeks ago) and bought a modern freewheel. a DNP Epoch 11-28. I may end up buying another for my ST500 because the new one shifted pretty darned nice tonight. god that bike's a beast now. that 11t will be insane downhill. wheee!

sorry for doubles, meant to multi but missed it and i can't figure out if i can get a do-over....

yeah, i wish the ST had the choice of friction, but it doesn't. i really like the trim ability that comes with friction to stop chain chatter or cog riding without having to yank the lever back and forth. I'm running the Sun Tour DT's on a GPX RD and a Cyclone FD. the FD works nicely, sometimes misses the middle ring on the way up, but that's not a big deal.

You guys are a font of information. My head's spinning a little; however, i'm addicted, now