DOS

My question is, will this work?

I have two 6 speed suntour winner pro freewheels, one with a damaged freewheel body. One of the freewheels is set up with ultra spacing while the other is standard (so wider spacing). I set about swapping cogs from damaged freewheel to the undamaged one to get the gear range I like with the goal of having one operational 6 speed freewheel. But then I recalled reading somewhere that the winner pro freewheel body could go as high as seven speeds by using the narrower spacers from the ultra spaced freewheel. So rather than using the fatter spacers to achieve a 6 speed standard spaced freewheel (it's going on a 126 spaced bike, not indexed), I used the narrower spacers and was able to get seven cogs on the freewheel. It'll be a while before I get the bike built to test the shifting so I thought I'd ping the forum to see if I did this correctly.

One thing I should note is that I used one odd looking spacer. While most of the spacers I had to work with are basically solid metal rings, I have one that has raised teeth that align with notches on the freewheel. To get to seven speeds, I came up short one narrow spacer but when I measured the teeth on this funky one, their height came in about same as the thickness of my narrow spacers (about 2.75mm). When I installed it between two cogs, it appears to set the cogs with correct spacing because the splines on the next smaller cog rest on the raised teeth of this weird spacer.

Welcome any insight on whether I went wrong and what I need to do to wind up with a functional seven speed freewheel.

Crescent Cycle

If you're using friction shifting, the spacing really shouldn't matter, especially if the one that is off is at the end and the position is dictated by a stop. Obviously just make sure to use a thin enough chain that it doesn't rub and that you didn't manage to somehow extend the width so that the smallest cog might rub the frame.

Andrew R Stewart 

Agree with CC above. Added notes about ST's FWs. Their indexed ones didn't use symmetrical spacing across the range. Instead the cog to cog spacing got less IIRC as the cogs got larger. Something about cable tension levels being the primary design (and that's coming from a fellow mechanic, not me). Also there were a number of different Winner bodies. Some early ones had adjustable bearings, I still have the unique wrenches for them. Then there were a few different widths and number/types of cog attaching splines/threadings. I was pretty fluent in ST Winner speak early on but as the "language" evolved and things went indexed i lost interest. I still have a few odd FWs in my stash. Andy.

hueyhoolihan

sounds like you are on the ragged edge of the DIY bell curve with that one . kudos, and good luck.

Jeff Wills

You're probably better off asking on C&V (there's real freewheel junkies there) but I don't think it's possible. On a 7-speed New Winner, the two small cogs are particular to 7-speed. You can't use the "standard" 6-speed cogs to do what you want.

Courtesy Yellow Jersey:

Ex Pres 

PastorBob in C&V is your answerman.

Homebrew01

Sounds like you already built the 7 speed freewheel ?? So I would think it will work.

I have some misc small cogs if you need any.