Lovenutz

I bought a NOS Suntour Ultra-6 off the bay. It looks great, and although I have yet to test it on a bike, it seems to be perfectly functional.

The only problem is the noise. If I hold it in my hand and shake it, I can hear the bearings. It sounds like a maraca. I've never had a freewheel do this before.

Do I need to get some oil in there or something?

mobilemail

As long as those freewheels have been on the shelf, it most likely needs repacked with good grease. If you aren't comfortable chasing a hundred bearings across the floor when you open it, I think I would send it to PastorBob's freewheel spa. Then you will have a quality freewheel you can use in confidence.

Lascauxcaveman 

Man, I never heard of that sort of thing. Then again, I can't hear much at all these days. I would think very old grease would have the balls frozen in place instead of letting them rattle around.

JohnDThompson 

Which model freewheel is it? The Winner/New Winner freewheels have an oil port that can be exposed by removing the cogs from the body.

cdmurphy

Your freewheel probably just needs lubing. I haven't seen a NOS Suntour, but they probably just used a light oil. (Which has evaporated). You don't want grease in there, unless you're careful to keep it out of the pawls. (if the grease gets in the pawls, it can slow their engagement, potentially leading to skipping and poor engagement.) Usually, I dribble heavy gear oil into my freewheels. It gets were it needs to go, and sticks around a bit better than lighter oils.

It's also possible the bearing adjustment is simply too loose, but suspect it's just dry.

72SuperSport

The last freewheel I took apart it was bone dry, no trace of dry grease or any oil at all, and it was an old NOS Shimano circa 1975. I would not be surprised if yours came without grease. I'd oil it with good motor oil, in one side and spin it constantly til it drips out the other. If it drips out dirty keep going til it's clean. Taking them apart is not difficult if you're mechanically inclined but do it on a bench over a rag to catch the bearings, then count them. I grease mine with synthetic automotive wheel bearing grease. I haven't had any sprag engagement problems, but synthetic can work itself a bit thinner than dino-derived grease...

Ghrumpy

+1
DON'T GREASE IT!
Light machine oil, as noted, is the best lube for freewheels of all kinds, Suntour freewheels especially. Unlike every other bicycle bearing, freewheels only spin when they are under no load. So the bearings don't need the heavy lube that grease provides. The bearings in freewheels function mostly as spacers to keep the pawls engaged in the ratchets when loaded. But they are static when that happens. The freewheel is moving with the hub, and is essentially part of the hub.

If grease is used the pawls can get stuck in "open" mode and can turn into free-as-a-bird-now-both-ways-wheels. Suntour freewheels in particular were susceptible to this. You can pretty much run a freewheel with no lube and it will function better than with grease in it. It won't last super long, but it won't spin both ways.

It is possible that the adjustment is a little bit loose. Since you have an Ultra spaced Suntour FW, it's likely to be some sort of Winner. If you have New Winner model, you can adjust the bearings if you have the right tool. It adjusts kind of like a hub cone. If you have a Winner or Winner Pro, the adjustment is with shims. If you don't have the tool or shims, best to lube it and ride it. It should be just fine.

Jeff Wills

Good info: https://www.sheldonbrown.com/suntour-freewheel.html

Jon T

Marvel Mystery Oil is your friend. Dribble it in one side 'til it runs out the other and you'll be good to go.
Jon

Lovenutz

It's a pro-compe model freewheel.

I'll give it some automotive engine oil soon and see if that helps it. I've never had a freewheel make this sound before.

I have taken apart a freewheel before. I used globs of marine grease on both the bearings and the pawls. I would barley spin afterwords lol.

texaspandj

Wow, by your description it sounds like you're missing a few ball bearings (not a big deal) and you have no grease/oil (more of a problem).
I'm not familiar with Suntour at all. But if it's anything like Shimano, if you take it apart you HAVE to use grease to reassemble there's no other way to reassemble without losing ball bearings (IME). If you Dont want to take it apart (and you want to lube it) you HAVE to use oil as there's no other way to lube it (IME). A medium viscosity oil the consistency of Phils tenacious oil is best if you go that route. If you go the the taking apart route, use only enough grease to hold bearings in place and it'll be fine.

IrishBrewer

And it can be inexpensive if you can get a free wheel.

Prowler 

+1. Of course we don't know how loud your FW is rattling but a full set of dry bearings, with minimal spacing between, should not rattle very much, even be a bit hard to hear. However a FW with several missing balls would have enough space to allow the balls to roll around the track and rattle more noticebly. So the question is "what's up?" As I find FWs easy I would just open it and do it right then have that peace of mind. Or send it to PastorBob. IMO Suntour FWs are too nice to mistreat or not maintain properly. I have several in service and several spares.

BTW, a light coat of grease on the bearing balls does no harm, does them good and keeps the FW quiet. I like quiet FWs. Fun to sneak up on brand new $8000 bikes with brand new free hubs that rattle enough to scare deer back into the woods.

satbuilder 

Soak it in kerosene. That should dissolve the hardened grease. Alternate spinning it and soaking it until kerosene runs clear. Spin it to get residual kerosene out of it, and lubricate with the oil of your choice. That should do it.

texaspandj

You could just send it to the good Pastor Bob.
I wonder how many pages well get to on this?

WFdave

I just rebuilt 2 7-speed Suntour freewheels and even when cleaned and serviced they don't seem as quite as Shimano.

I break the freewheel nut free while on the rim then take my a part over a magnetic mechanics tray. I put a rag under the freewheel to hold the inner race up (bearings in place) and remove the outer race and bearings and put the bearings in a small container to soak. The remove the inner race and those bearings to soak. clean the parts/races. To hold bearings in place and provide some lubricant I use a light synthetic grease. Add oil as needed afterwards

pastorbobnlnh 

Sometimes I think I should have made my user name easier to remember! The "nlnh" stands for "New London, New Hampshire" where I reside. However, thanks for the shout outs @Prowler, @texaspandji and @mobilemail. You are so kind to mention me.
@Lovenutz your NOS ProCompe is a great freewheel and deserves a proper servicing. For all the arguments suggesting that freewheels are not under load and only need light machine oil dribbled in through the gaps between the bodies, I ask:

"Why did the manufacturer use grease when the freewheel was originally assembled?"

My advice is to open it up, properly clean the interior, inspecting for corrosion and the bearings to see if they need to be replaced (and probably added to). Add a thin layer of synthetic grease to the races and a few drops of quality machine oil on the pawl pivots. Rub grease onto the interior surfaces and the spacers to thwart future corrosion. I fill the races with as many bearings as properly fit. Don't worry about counting them.

Do this and your ProCompe won't need servicing for many 1000s of miles instead of every hundred or so when using the drip and drizzle method.


This Perfect (ProCompe's lower cost sibling) was repeatedly flushed with Simple Green and WD40. As can be seen in these pictures, it did not remove all the contaminates.

qcpmsame 

^^^, +1 for using the @pastorbobnlnh Freewheel Spa service. The freewheels he refurbished for me are smooth as silk, and are in regular use. His method of thoroughly cleaning everything are using high quality grease in the body is my preference.

Bill

steelbikeguy

because every thread needs some idiot pulling it off topic with tangential questions, .. let me ask this tangential question:

what were the functional differences between the Pro Compe and the Perfect? I always assumed it was just the gold coloring of the Pro Compe, because gold must be better than brown, and of course, to show that it was as flashy as a Regina Oro.

Or did the Pro Compe's have bearing cones that wouldn't back out while riding? only sort of joking there, but I've had a couple of SunTour Perfect's (or was it Pro Compe's?) that unscrewed while riding.

thanks!

Steve in Peoria

pastorbobnlnh 

@steelbikeguy, thanks for asking. This is a really good question.

The only two visual differences between the Suntour Perfect and ProCompe, as far as I can detect (other than sprocket finish), is that the finish on the ProCompe body seems to be more robust and less prone to corrosion. Also the bearing races are finished to a mirror surface.

Now with both of those things said, it makes me wonder if they used a higher quality steel on the ProCompe bodies. I also seem to find the bearings in a ProCompe to be in better condition, so I wonder if the bearings are a better grade?

As far as pawls, springs, pins, retaining ring/outer bearing race, and spacers are concerned, they are all interchangeable.

Bill (@qcpmsame) thanks for the vote of confidence! Very kind of you!

Bandera

All due respect to @pastorbobnlnh who does the meticulous & "proper" tedious re-build work on freewheels.

If I put any of the several Shimano/Sun Tour FWs that I have back in service tomorrow they would get the same treatment they had when originally put in service and when they "sounded like they need it" years ago. A sip of light non-detergent machine oil, usually Phil, and Good to Go. Chains and freewheels were/are wearable, replaced as required and disposable drive-train components. In all of the years and thousands of miles ridden on the FW design I have never had a failure of a FW body in service treated as above. No doubt sitting for a decade or more has dried whatever lube was there somewhat/not-at-all/completely but a sip of oil would be applied anyway as SOP and ridden with no concern on my part.

As to why grease was OEM?
Oil would have leaked out and made as mess of the OEM packaging, a bit of light grease was suitable for use but a sip of oil was the race mechanic's trick-touch.

As always, suit yourself.

edit:
An oil port in the FW body, as @JohnDThompson noted, was part of the Design on ST Winner and late model Shimano FWs.
It was there to be used to oil the FW as required.

-Bandera

Ghrumpy

Quite so.

Not only that, but grease is sticky, by design, and as Pastor Bob knows, it's much easier to assemble/reassemble all those little balls when they have some grease to stick to. Once it's all together though, the grease is unnecessary. It's sticky. Freewheels need to be free, not sticky.

I've done my share of tedious freewheel rebuilds, so I'm speaking from experience. On one vintage three-speed one that was rough and snaggy, I discovered that the ball bearing complement was, let's say, less than "complete." There were maybe eight or ten bearings per side, with spacers made of arched wire between them. One such spacer had broken, hence the problem. I replicated a new spacer, and reassembled as original. No reason that doesn't work basically as well as a full complement of balls. Maybe slightly more friction, but as long as there's a slick-slidy oil in there, no problem.

@pastorbobnlnh, my statement was that freewheels only spin when they are bearing no load. When they are bearing a load, they move as one with the rear hub, so the bearings themselves are static, and functioning only as spacers. A freewheel's bearings thus operate in a different way from every other bearing on a bicycle. Those all bear loads only while in motion, and are always in motion when the bicycle itself is (except possibly the BB when coasting.) Grease is better at keeping those bearings lubricated under the loads they experience. Do you disagree with any of that?

Lovenutz

Thank you everyone for the help. And thank you @pastorbobnlnh . I'll send you a PM.

This is what it sounds like to me. If it was really NOS, I would think it would have all the bearings. But it was off ebay, and I've been burned there before.

ptempel

Grease or oil would be ideal. Phil used to make a freewheel grease injection tool but I don't think its available anymore. It was close to this one:

Stein Freewheel Lube-Injector Tool - $49.99



But when I try to add this item to the cart, it doesn't show up. Oh well. When I used to use this tool, it was cool to see the contaminents getting pushed out the other side when the grease flowed through.

JohnDThompson 

Phil didn't make the freewheel injector; they just marketed it for Stein. And while they made a point that a Phil grease tube could be directly threaded into the injector (same thread as the Zerk fitting), Phil grease is far too heavy for this purpose. You want the lightest grease you can find, otherwise a chilly day means the pawls won't engage.