Freewheel grease?
 

I successfully took apart and re-assembled a 6-speed Shimano freewheel.
Heeding all the warnings, I was very careful, especially considering the 69 tiny ball bearings involved!

I used Phil Woods bearing grease, and although it spins smooth...it does not spin "forever", like some others do.
Should I have used a thinner lube, or will this grease loosen up after a while?

Generally bearing grease is not good for freewheels, as you've found. Try white lithium.

I've seen people recommend Phil's tenacious oil. I tried it and it seemed to work, as far as I can tell. Though, being oil, who knows how long its effects last.


https://www.bikeforums.net/bicycle-m...brication.html

Isn't there a resident freewheel guru?

I had a similar question recently, i.e., "why does my old freewheel seem to spin forever whereas my newer ones do not?" The prevailing wisdom was that my old one spun freely because the lube had degraded, and that it was not in the optimal state. It was spinning dry, essentially.

EDIT: Here is the link to my thread https://www.bikeforums.net/classic-v...esistance.html, and the response about missing lube is by Pastor Bob, the freewheel guru on this forum.

And I bet it is nice and quiet! I used to grease my SunTour FWs with Phil's green. Loved the nice smooth, quite FW. Yes, it is more friction. And no, I never noticed it riding.

(I figured as a bike racer that the additional friction was more than offset by the fact that I could coast behind another rider and not broadcast to the world I wasn't working!)

Ben

Further to my earlier post, you may want to familiarize yourself with NLGI grease ratings. Flywheels don't get much if any stress. As a result, go with an NLGI 1 or thinner rating.

It only spins when you're coasting, it doesn't matter. It will loosen up a little when the grease gets pushed around a bit. More important- do the pawls engage-coast-engage when it's cold outside. Good job not shooting parts all around the room. :thumb:

pastorbobnlnh is the freewheel guru

Nice job on doing a rebuild. Thin oil may not last as long as thick grease but you can always add a drop or two more often.

that's what I'd do. And if it's a Shimano 62nn or 72nn freewheel, there's an oil port that makes adding oil dead-easy.

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

Thanks for the great replies.
I did my old 13-21 MF-6208 with Phil's grease, so I may try Tenacious Oil on the newer 13-23.
It may be trickier since the grease holds the bearings in place so well during re-assembly.

About the above oil port picture, do you have to remove the cogs to get to it?
I did not do that, and in fact would not yet know how to do that!

Yes to this, NLGI 1 it is.
I'll put my mask on and see if our auto parts store has some.

Thinner, but still a grease to hold the bearings in place during assembly.
The bottoms are the perilous ones...

In the very early days of mountain bikes, Phil sold a tool specifically for injecting grease into freewheels. The shop owner where I worked insisted that all these newfangled mountain bikes get their freewheels injected with Phil grease, to keep out the dirt and water I guess. Soon enough it became apparent that this wasn't such a great idea. The pawls can sometimes get stuck down under certain conditions, leading to a potentially dangerous situation. For this reason pretty much all bike shops stopped greasing freewheels shortly after they started. If you want to risk it for your own use, that's fine, but best to stick with a low viscosity grease.

However, it's much easier, safer and quite effective to use Phil's tenacious oil instead. That's what most bike shops used from the time it came out until the end of the freewheel era. (at least in my area)

Obviously, a freewheel with a dedicated grease port is probably no problem to grease, but try to find the manufacturer's tech sheet to verify if possible. Could be an oil port.

Back in 70s I made a habit of greasing freewheel bodies. This was when local Mr. Schwinn could supply any size of SunTour cog from the board in back of the shop and order any Regina/Atom cog from Kostner & Cortland. Either way a cog was under a buck, it made sense to keep using the same bodies. Always Phil grease, it held the bearings well during assembly. Never any problems at all. Unless you count the pawls sticking if attempting to ride below 10 degrees Fahrenheit. Which became a good reason to stay indoors. In early years of MTB freewheels and cassettes constantly blew up, don’t think that was a grease versus oil issue.

And then the cassette snake oil came along and I fell for it. Took over twenty years to regain my senses. Don’t grease them now because I have spares and will die before they are worn out.

Lithium grease is the way to go when overhauling. Adding Oil makes the freewheel too loud and it doesn't last long. Meanwhile, if a lithium greased freewheel is left undisturbed for 25 years the lithium grease drys but still allows your bearings to roll smoothly.

Yes, but removing the cogs is a good deal easier than completely rebuilding the freewheel. All you need is a freewheel vise and a chain whip. Or, if you want to service it on the wheel, just two chain whips. One to hold the freewheel steady and the other to unthread the smallest cog so you can slide the splined cogs off the body and expose the oil port.

Great to know...thanks for posting!

I just completed a successful reassembly of a Suntour 7 speed freewheel, and I had an issue similar to yours. In the rebuild I used Park Tool PPL-1 grease. I used a bead on top and bottom to place the ball bearings and I slathered it a little too liberally over the pawls. Once put back together, it felt smooth but really sluggish. I never even got the freewheel on the hub. I WD40'd it and removed all the grease and re-lubed it with Triflow lubricant. Much thinner and it is much less sluggish. It's back on the bike and it feels great. I anticipate I will probably have to give the freewheel attention at more regular intervals, but that doesn't bother me as much as the extra friction did.

I'm probably doing it wrong, but I have usually lubed freewheels via carefully applying lube on a removed freewheel in the bearing race crack. Sort of spinning and lubing, spinning and lubing. I use a heavier lube like Finish Line wet lube. I keep doing it until it leaks out and then just keep spinning it in my hand for a while.

I should say I only do this if the freewheel doesn't seem to have any grinding or crunchy bits as you spin it.

The cassette snake oil, eh? Now that's what I call a dyed in the wool C&Ver! ;)

That's how it was done in bike shops BITD. This would be after a soak in the solvent tank and blowing it out with air. (i'm guessing solvent tanks don't use solvent anymore... )

Finish Line wet lube works pretty well for this. But try Phil Tenacious some time. You won't go back...



BTW, I know how to overhaul a freewheel. It was not done in bike shops because it cost less to sell you a new freewheel. A full overhaul was rarely pragmatic or necessary for freewheels BITD, but now that they are decades old, it can be worth doing.

I bought one of these new in October 2018 and it was $32 including shipping from bicycletool.com which appeared to be the remnants of bicycle research. Now, bicycletool.com appears to be defunct. I thought it was worth the price considering it was obvious that these things were getting scarce, but it's worth every penny considering reduced blood loss and chain whip funerals. I've seen other vise designs, but these bicycle research tools work like a charm. They might be magic.
https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...d72d619a90.jpg

Used to use Phil's tenacious oil then used Finish Line Wet and I won't go back. I prefer Finish Line Wet Lube because it runs cleaner to me. I don't use it for everything though. That said I used Phil's oil and grease for many years from my youngest days up until a few years ago. I think it was very good, but I like other stuff better now.

Never used solvents or soaked or blown off, just patiently lubed it as I described. I did work in bike shops 25 years ago though so maybe that's where I picked it up.

Huh???

Adding oil makes a freewheel quiet.

It's when the oil dissipates and the freewheel is dry that it makes noise. That is your signal to add a few more drops of oil.

While you have the oil in hand, lube your chain, too.

The oil made my freewheel Loud.
Every 30+ year old BB and Freewheel that I've cracked open had used lithium grease like (peanut butter consistency) Not marine grease (like jelly) and all them actually spinned smoothly but needed to overhaul because of said 30+ years. The bearings weren't greasy, however the bearing race was smooth with dried grease.
I can't be the only one that's noticed that on vintage bikes.