I had more or less successfully gotten index shifting to work on my wife's Peugeot with a Suntour Freewheel. It was a little finicky when on the large chain ring, but it worked.

Based on the recommendations of some folks here and that fact that is was so cheap ($15), I went out and got a new Shimano 6 speed hyperglide freewheel. Unbelievable difference.

I think it's the best $15 I've ever spent on a bike. I'm thinking of doing the same to my uniglide Peugeot.

I was a little worried about getting the old freewheel off since I didn't have a vice, but a deep-well socket, a large torque wrench, and a stair to wedge the wheel up against made it suprisingly easy.

I had a new chain that was meant for my MTB, so I didn't have to buy one. Problem was I had shortened it for the MTB which made it a couple of links too short for the Peugeot. I had the extra links but ended up with a stiff link every time I tried to add the new ones. After much aggravation I realized that my link removing tool also has a built in feature that can fix stiff links. Worked like a charm.

Anyway, even if you have friction shifters, it's an upgrade I enthusiastically recommend.

Anyone need a Suntour Perfect Freewheel cheap? Comes with a free remover tool ;-)

Depends. I've found that 8, and with some friction levers, 7-speed Hyperglide can be finicky to the point where one's chain will constantly ramp off to the next cog and back down to the intended cog - again and again.

I'd be interested in that Suntour Perfect freewheel, depending on gearing - what is the range on it?

-Kurt

You're probably right about 7/8/9 speeds with narrow cog spacing. All I know is that with 6 friction shifting was pretty sweet, but I'm used to friction shifting on that bike anyway. Somebody who wasn't would probably be moving the lever too far. The levers can switch between friction and indexed and that's one reason I got them. I could have saved about $10.00 by using index only shifters.

I believe the range is 14T - 28T. I'm starting to get confused as to what is on which bike. I'll check to be sure. It's not the prettiest thing in the world, I was more interested in the wheel it came on. My wife had been using it for about 6 weeks and maybe 200 miles. The teeth are in good shape, - no skipping. I can send you some pics if you like. It's not an "Ultra" or whatever they called the ones that would fit on a 5 speed hub.

HG freewheels on an old bike can be a real eye-opener. My old Atala has had Regina, Sun Tour, and Shimano freewheels over the past 35 years, and I though the 6 speed Uniglide freewheel I was running was pretty sweet until I replaced it with a HG this spring.
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It WAS a real eye opener. It'll be one of the first things I do to any old bike I plan to hang onto from this point forward.

If you are trynig to get 6 speed indexed shifting working with a Suntour freewheel, and Shimano shifters there is your problem right there. Suntour and Shimano indexed systems were spaced differently, and the parts are not supposed to be interchangeable.

The Uniglide DA cassette on my Razesa shifts pretty damn sweet, it's hard to imagine Hyperglide would be a lot better, but I'll find out when I upgrade it to 9-speed. the freehub body is in the mail.

This particular freewheel used the same spacing as a 6 speed shimano so it worked. It was a notch below the uniglide in terms of smooth shifts. The uniglide is a couple of notches below the hyperglide though a newer chain may have benefited both the suntour and the uniglide.

The Suntour worked pretty well on the small chainring, on the large it sometimes took a little pressure beyond the detent to get the shift to complete.

I notice this sometimes even on my uniglide bike when downshifting.

The suntour large chainring problem could be due to the fact that I forced a 126 mm wheel into the 120 mm dropouts and they're not quite parallel or perhaps the derailleur claw is slightly bent.

Or it could be because uniglide or hyperglide is just necessary for decent index shifting on shimano equipment.

Suntour non ramped freewheels are terrible for indexed shifting. I did the same as you and upgraded to a Shimano

I have a 7 speed Hyperglide that works flawlessly with my Campy RD.
I would strongly recommend you not use a torque wrench to remove your freewheel. It will really screw up your calibration. I am saying this from experience. A 3 ft. section of pipe is a lot cheaper than a new torque wrench.

I've heard that before and I'm sure it's true, although my torque wrench is the clicking type that will work both clockwise and counter-clockwise, so I guess I don't know why it would be made to work counter-clockwise if you weren't intended to take stuff off with it. I left it set at zero.

I would have used my breaker bar, - except it was broken. The thing I don't like about using pipes is the slop between the pipe and the wrench, - but it works.

If you're going to use a click type torque wrench as a breaker bar, dial the lbs up high enough so it won't click. Don't forget to dial it back down to zero after every use. I've never had to recalibrate my TWs in over 30 years of full time wrenching by following those guidelines.

Good to know, - Thanks !

I just put a modern, 7 speed, 13-28, ramped IRD freewheel on my old Fuji Allegro commuter. Works beautifully with my downtube friction shifters, although I had to tighten the levers up a touch. For anyone contemplating such a move, upgrade the chain too. The IRD freewheel did not play well with my old chain, which was working OK with the Suntour 6 speed freewheel. A modern SRAM PC-58 (Jenson has a nice price on this chain) does play well with the IRD freewheel. The upgrade in shifting was like moving from a crusty, old dumptruck to a modern, Honda civic. Smoooooth, even under load.

I also just upgraded an old 6-speed to a Shimano HG 7-speed (11-28). As previously posted, amazing improvement in shifting, and best $20 I've ever spent!