I recently broke my wheel that came on my bike and have been trying yo replace them, and I am running into some difficulties. I purchased some vuelta zerolite wheels and a shimano cassette and cant seem to get the cassette to fit on the wheel. I am new to bikes so I am not familiar with pretty much anything about them. I will attach a picture of whats causing the problem and if someone could explain what is it to me. Thanks in advance.

7,8,9,10 ,0r 11 speed cassette?

trying to put Shimano MF-TZ31 Tourney Freewheel (14-34T Mega 7 Speed) on ZeroLite Road Comp Wheel Set, 700C, Black

Most likely the hub will only take a 8,9,10 speed cassette.

Not a 7 speed.

Freewheel and freehub don't go together.

this is what is looks like when I try to put the cassette on.






my bike (gmc denali road bike) only goes to 7 on the gearing?

What should i do?

I see a photo of a freehub, but not the cassette you're trying to fit.

OTOH, are those the bearing balls I see? If so, why did you remove the axle and cones?

Blurry photo . . . It's a trap! Don't fall for it FB!

I thought it I would need to remove them to get the cassette on

Seriously, where's the axle?

Also, the freewheel theory make sense, but I'd hope that even a mechanically declined newbie would be able to see the difference between a spline and thread (without knowing the terms themselves).

And look what hope gave us.

Not much of a theory since it's in the problem statement.

One of the most important lessons a mechanic can learn is to quit while he's behind. Odds are that you're trying to fit a freewheel onto a freehub as noted by Anklework. In any case you shouldn't have removed the axle, and are very obviously in over your head.

Put the axle back on, and read a tutorial on "adjusting hub cones", to get back to where you started. Then (or maybe before) have someone look at the two parts and confirm your problem is that the cassette is a freewheel.

Helpful repair info:

https://www.parktool.com/blog/repair-help

You got the wrong wheel.

You need a wheel designed for freewheels to mate with your freewheel.

Cassette v Freewheel: https://sheldonbrown.com/free-k7.html

as stated, looks like you are trying to put a thread-on freewheel (1980's technology) on a splined freehub made for a cassette (post '90s technology).

like trying to plug in a male DB9 connector into female USB socket. won't work.

also looks like you've removed the reverse threaded freehub bearing race, and axle, in a desperate (i'm assuming you were desperate, maybe you were completely composed IDK ) attempt to find a way to make this work. anyway you will need to use a splined cassette (and there are different spline configurations, of course!). keep at it, you've make some mistakes, but there aren't many more to make before you succeed.

Come to think of it, are there some 7 speed cassettes that wil fit on a 8,9,10 wheel with the right spacer ?? If so, OP could keep the wheel and get a 7 speed cassette ...... ???

Any Shimano 7-speed cassette will fit on a Shimano 8/9/10-speed freehub body with a 4.5 mm spacer to take up the slack. I agree the OP is in WAY over his head and his next move is a knowledgeable friend or an LBS