I don't recommend using the grease injector. It floods the entire interior of the body with grease. The grease needs to be in the races and on the bearings, and basically no where else. Also, without disassembly you can't see the grime and contamination left behind on the inside. No amount of external flushing can completely clean the interior, IMO.

Damn I love this forum! I came here to seek FW lube advice and this thread is freshly discussing that very topic.

Lovenutz, I'm pretty sure you bought the (an) Ultra-6 I considered and lusted after, but decided to pass on for the price. Instead, I picked up a used Pro Compe 5S with wide gearing (14-34). Last night, I pulled all the cogs off to give them a good scrubbing. My FW body feels smooth so no disassembly this year (plus, I don't currently have a pin spanner). But now that I've seen Pastorbob's pics, I will certainly schedule this job for next winter.

Bob, how long would your regular freewheel service take? Every time I think about pulling one apart, I relent and think "too much time."

Back when freewheels were standard equipment, ridden until replacement cogs were unavailable for many brands or just as expensive to re-build from a cog board as a new FW they were trashed along with worn-out chains and new bits fitted. In my shop we didn't offer FW overhaul service to customers as the labor rate far exceeded the replacement cost.

Today leave it to Bob, or just oil it and ride. ;)

-Bandera

Only 2 pages? I thought we'd be up to 4 pages by now.
When I did the spray clean and then dribble oil thing on my Dura Ace freewheel it was so loud and clanky that I thought something was broken. I was forced to overhaul with grease. Mid way through the rebuild I pm'd a question to pastor Bob, he answered and then I finished.
Since then I've overhauled several. The oil thing didn't work for me.

In what way did it not work for you? It was carrying cogs, it was spinning, the pawls were obviously engaging. That's all the "work" it needs to do.
The only thing that "forced" you to use grease was your expectation that it be quiet. I think that's a mistaken expectation; freewheels are supposed to work, and "quiet" is not a design parameter. Especially Dura-Aces. If they're quiet, it means the grease is interfering with the operation of the pawls. That can cause failure. This is not theoretical. I have seen it many times, thanks to that d@%n Stein injector.
If you want to use some Tenacious Oil on freewheels, that's as heavy a lube you need, and it will make them slightly quieter.

It's one thing for a clean and lubed freewheel to make noise. It's another for a dry, dirty freewheel to make noise. It's not hard to hear the difference. You might find it's easier to adjust your expectations than it is to rebuild a freewheel.

New winner pro, body.. the oil port is on the inside seen when you remove it from the hub..

labyrinth seals keep dirt from coming in.. when mounted.

Absolutely No way was it in the parameters of what anyone would find acceptable. It was disturbingly loud. Not pleasant or soothing or an indication that it is a expensive/quality or even a sound freewheel. It was clanky and frightening in the sense it was broken or about to explode. Fwiw I used a medium weight oil.
To answer your question "in what way did it not work for me?" I want a reliable bike that I can be confident in. That loud freewheel did not inspire confidence.

Just to further stir the pot: Here is the box for a Suntour Winner Pro freewheel, admonishing you not to use grease.

Personally, I find a heavy gear oil to be about perfect. It quiets them some, and can be dribbled through without disassembly. (I would only disassemble if there was some obvious problem, not just for periodic lubing purposes.) Not to knock Pastor Bob's experience, but soaking in Simple Green is a pretty poor way to dissolve dried oils and varnishes. I find kerosene or diesel to do a much better job, or, best yet: Berryman "Chem-Dip" carburetor cleaner. It smells horrible, and will eat plastics, but will pretty much dissolve any organic oil/grease/wax/varnish with an overnight soak. My usual resuscitation technique is an overnight chem-dip soak, water rinse, then immediate high pressure air from the compressor to blow out all the water I can, followed by an hour or two in a toaster oven at about 150 degrees to dry them. Then I dribble in maybe a cc of heavy gear oil from the back while rotating them, and set them on a stack of paper towels to soak up whatever runs out the front. After this, they're good for a few thousand miles. Subsequent re-lubing would just be soaking / flushing in kerosene, followed by re-oiling.

A picture is worth a thousand posts, I rest my case.
Oil as required is how it was done and should be today, per the Manufacturer.

-Bandera

You're right -- it's the Shimano 600/Dura-Ace freewheels that have the oil port under the cogs:

http://www.os2.dhs.org/~john/shimano-fw-oil-port.jpg

BITD, My (late) father machined a zirk outfitted piece to force stuff in that little hole, when you screwed it into the freewheel ..

You forgot to say Q.E.D.

Be careful with Chem-dip y'all. Some freewheels have plastic dust caps or lip seals, Dura-Ace/600 (as just pictured) and some late Reginas among the former, and later Sachs-Maillard among the latter. You can usually remove the plastic caps without requiring total disassembly. Lip seals not so much.

Fair enough. But I will reiterate my point that quietness in itself is not an indication of a properly "working" freewheel.
I'm concerned that there possibly WAS a problem that quieting it down may now just be masking. Even a clean dry freewheel shouldn't sound that bad. Did you disassemble it? That wasn't clear from your description.

Initially I was tracking a grinding feeling while pedaling. The freewheel was in a long list of things to check. So I decided to do what most BF members recommended which is to either spray back of freewheel with WD 40 or immerse in paint thinner, mineral spirits, etc. However I went the wd40 route. I sprayed the back as recommended, til clear as recommended, then blew it out as recommended, then dribbled med weight oil as recommended. I'm telling you it was insane how loud it was. I took it off the stand and rode it some thinking it just needed to somehow run more. It got even louder. That's when I disassembled it and overhauled it. Had dribbling oil worked I never would have rebuilt it. Of note when I disassembled, it was dirty but in no way damaged, in fact had I not dribbled oil, it probably would have been fine.
I can not conceive a way in which to reassemble a freewheel without grease. Btw after which, I disassembled another freewheel and the "grease" was dry but it spinned so smoothly. It didn't need rebuilding either and probably never would need it, but I did anyway.

My question is ; Who has completely disassembled a freewheel, completely cleaned (including ball bearings) using a chemical degreaser and reassembled without grease?

My point isn't that grease on the bearings is bad, it's just that it's unnecessary, and grease on the pawls IS a bad idea. I'm sure the Suntour warning was intended to stop folks from filling them full of grease with something like the Stein tool. The fact you can't reassemble one without grease isn't a great argument for disassembling it in the first place, just so you can use grease. (All this assumes the freewheel is sound, just gunked up with old lube. If there is rust, or crunching / grinding noises, then by all means, tear it apart to see what has failed.)

I don't know what was going on with your Dura Ace freewheel. I have or have had several Dura Ace freewheels of the three generations I know of, and none of them had any trouble at all when lubed with oil. I can see them being noisier than you might like if you used a light oil like most spray lubes, but that shouldn't negatively effect their performance any. If you were getting grinding noises, I suspect one or more balls may have been defective / cracked, or there was some sort of debris in there. The only appreciable noise should have been from the pawls slapping back into their recesses as it freewheeled. Their clicking / clacking could be very loud, but shouldn't make any sort of grinding noises.

I do have one MF-6208 last generation 600 / Dura Ace freewheel that grinds a bit, but that is because it was rusty when I bought it, and some of the races were pretty pitted. I did tear that one apart and replaced the balls. Much better, but still makes more noise than I like.

To be clear, ultimately the grinding noise/feeling wasn't the freewheel. The freewheel was simply one thing to check on a long list. Hence the dribble method.
In the end I was glad I did it as I learned alot.

Since the freewheel bearings and ratchets are static when you are pedaling, that doesn't primarily or even secondarily indicate to me a need to check the freewheel internals. If it's grindy when coasting, though...
I wasn't there, so I have no idea how it sounded before or after. But I have heard many dozens of Dura-Ace freewheels, and some are just louder than others.
With that caveat, I'd say first off, I have no reason not to believe it WAS fine from the start. There probably was never a need to do anything at all to it. And as you said, you in no way damaged it by your service. Just made it louder. And that is only in comparison to how it was before. It wasn't working any worse before, after, or since your rebuild.
So second, no disrespect intended, it sounds like you created a problem for yourself to solve. That's fine, it's how we learn things sometimes. And now you know how to rebuild freewheels. A cool thing to know. Now rebuilding an IGH will seem like a walk in the park to you.
If your conclusion was based on a flawed assumption, which I'm suggesting it might have been, I'd suggest troubleshooting when it's necessary to rebuild and when it's not. Unless you just like doing it now. Which is cool. Go on with your badself!
Not I. I admitted I use only enough grease on the races to hold the balls in place. After it's all together, there's no further need for it though. In some cases, it causes problems.

Personal case in point: The factory grease in a NOS Sachs-Maillard freewheel I bought caused it to unscrew its cone and spill all its balls three miles from the end of a 125 mile ride for me a few years ago when I was preparing for Eroica CA. Not cool. We had done more than a few miles of gravel road, and enough dust had stuck in the old grease to allow the body to stick to the cone enough to eventually unscrew it. This doesn't happen easily, because the epicyclic forces of the balls normally keep the cone tight. With oil, that gap won't fill with crud, at least not enough to cause problems. Luckily the internals were not otherwise damaged, and I was able to rebuild it. I diluted the assembly grease as much as I could after reassembly. It's since done Eroica twice, and more than a few prep rides, and hasn't had a problem.

Certainly static if working correctly. But on my long list of things to check I wasn't going to leave no stone unturned. Fact is when that freewheel made that loud clacking I thought I found the problem.
What would you attribute the grinding feeling/noise to? A hint, I checked drivetrain first.

I commend that; it's good to be comprehensive. And it's possible the freewheel had some issues, I never say never. But by your admission the freewheel noise didn't start until after you serviced it. Worth checking, but not high on my list for a grinding sound while pedaling
I'm not taking that bait! You tell me. Could have been one of a dozen or more things. Too many to guess at from here.

Haha [MENTION=12349]davlafont[/MENTION] you're probably right. I wanted it because of it's wide gear range. It wasn't cheap, but I couldn't resist :D

I am not opposed to tearing down a freewheel, but I think this one is going to the freewheel spa.

Yes exactly, hence me dribbling oil in the freewheel. Regardless if it isn't primary, secondary, tertiary, or even quartenary. It was on the "LIST".

Based on exactly zero information, I'm going to guess "seatpost rubbing in seat tube". All of the mystery clicks and rattles that caused real grief were seat or seatpost related. :-)

I assume you checked all the normal culprits like bottom bracket, chain ring bolts, pedals, hub bearings, etc, before looking at the freewheel.

Pedals,Bottom bracket,hubs,headset and FREEWHEEL all overhauled.
Stem,seatpost bolts,chainrings tightened.
Quick release and chain "checked" and lubed.
Answer: CHAIN! Although I measured with a ruler. I asked rccardr could it be the chain he said yes and it was. I put a cheap bell walmart chain on my mostly Dura Ace Ironman (just to check) and it was and is as smooth as can be.
Well it's been fun but I've got to get ready for work. Later.