T-Mar

The off-centre location of the cone adjusting holes is not intentional. Nominally, they should be equidistant from the inside edge of the cone.

I believe the 'S' within the circle indicates that the freewheel was manufactured in Shimano's Singapore factory. Consequently, it would be no older than 1973.

The 'RS" is a date code. I don't know the format, but believe it may represent weeks 37-38 of 1974. It's definitely pre-1976, when Shimano revised the format.

Shimano enlarged the diameter of their freewheel splines in the very early 1980s. I have never seen a thin walled remover that could fit over a standard 17mm locknut and fit the old style freewheels with the smaller spline diameter.

baumgrenze

Thank you for the suggestions, Juvela,
The tool I tried too use was the Bicycle Research one in the photo. I gather that it is not what you would call 'thin wall?'
Is it possible to remove the gears in a cluster without removing the freewheel?
Perhaps I'm not making sense, but when I last worked on it, I envisioned that I was trying to remove something from the center of the hub that had to be removed before the gears could be unscrewed, one at a time.
If I make a pair of 'chain-wrenchs or whips' from old bicycle chain and a pieces of barstock can I disassemble the cluster by removing one gear at a time with the freewheel remaining in the center of the cluster?
Can I set the two handles very near one another and rotate the one on the gear to be removed with respect to the other?
If so, then clearly I should with the smallest gear?
Do all of the gears in the cluster unscrew from the overall hub in a counter-clockwise fashion?

thanks,
baumgrenze

T-Mar

We'd need a photo taken from the removal side, to tell if your freewheel removal tool is the thin wall version. As previously stated, Shimano had two different spline diameters. The thin wall tools typically fit freewheels with the larger spline diameter and were from the very early 1980s onwards. The thick wall tool fit the earlier freewheels with the smaller spline diameter.





The cogs are all individual (.ie. not bolted or riveted together as in a cassette) and can be removed with the freewheel body either on or off the hub. On freewheels of your vintage, the top two cogs should threaded on to the freewheel body. They are standard right hand threads, so counter-clockwise rotation will loosen them. You can remove them with chain whips. The three larger cogs have three splines and slip over the larger diameter, inner portion of the freewheel body. There are spacers between the 2nd through 5th cogs, with the spacer behind the 2nd having a smaller inner diameter and fitting over the threaded section of the freewheel body.

juvela

-----

baumgrenze -

with T-Mar to assist you you can only be in clover!

wonderful information AND presentation as always T-Mar.

-----