It looks like I am stung with the Vintage bike bug....

I have two Rigida rear wheels with Maillard hubs. The date stamps are 51 78 and 03 86 respectively. They look like standard Maillard hubs to me (no Helicomatic)
I want to remove the freewheels of both to clean them. I have a few questions:
1. Is this worth doing? I planned to clean the freewheels in some strong solvent/oxalic acid or the like and then put them back on.
2. In some previous thread I read about a freewheel removal tool from Bicycle Research Tools (CT-3) (see https://www.bicycleresearchtools.com/wheelt.html) that would work on Maillard hubs. The description says that it is for Normandy hubs. Will this one work on Maillard hubs

As always any help is greatly appreciated.
Duppie

You will need a freewheel removal tool that matches the freewheel that's on the hub.

What brand of freewheel are they? If you look at the center of the freewheel where the axle goes through, you will see a mating surface for the tool. Possibly 2 notches, 4 notches, or a series of splines. That will help you identify what tool you will need.

Let Sheldon give you a hand here:

https://www.sheldonbrown.com/freewheels.html

Freewheel tools are freewhel specific. They have nothing to do with the brand of the hub (except helicomatic).

You best bet is to have your local bike store look at it or......post a pic.

https://www.biketoolsetc.com carries just about every freewheel removing tool you could need, including ones for Maillard.

Neal

You don't want to get that extreme with the cleaning unless you plan on completely disassembling the freewheel itself to dry and relube it.

I spray the gears down with Simple Green or Orange cleaner and scrub them with a toothbrush, then rinse off while holding the gears vertically so water doesn't flood the internals.

Then give the internals a light spray with WD40 or PB Blaster to dissipate any water and to free things up. Blow dry if you have a compressor.

Finally lay the freewheel flat and drizzle some engine oil (synthetic) into the internals until it runs out the bottom. Wipe off excess. Done!

There are few different kinds of Maillard hubs, one of which was in a wheel that a customer brought into my shop to have the freewheel removed. I swear we have (or had) every freewheel remover in existence, but no, we didn't have that particular Maillard one. It was a huge diameter with splines...

Fixing typo in Neal's link:

https://www.biketoolsetc.com/

Thanks!

Neal

The earlier Maillard freewheels used a 2-prong puller. It was a poor design, but even Suntour made the same mistake. I had a wheel with one of those large diameter splined Maillard freewheels on it. I ended up removing it "destuctively". I ended up giving a guy that wheelset in exchange for some decals that I'll never get.

Fixed Neal's link.

I have one of those Maillard freewheels attached to a Exceltoo Super Competition rear hub. I tried the SunTour two-prong remover, but that just created wear spots in the slots of the freewheel. So I bought another two-prong remover, but it wasn't the right size. I'm just about in destructo mode, but it's been a bear to get the cogs off of the freewheel body. It's in the low-priority pile now.

Neal

I have a Maillard puller that came in the box with the 700 freewheel and a bunch of cogs and spacers. The puller was made by Maillard, so it fits. I can lend it to you if you like. Actully, I'd like to sell the whole thing. I'm sold on Shimano Hyperglide freewheels.

Just to note, the trailing slash isn't needed unless there's something after it in the URL.

Um, in case you REALLY don't know how to do this, I recommend the correct freewheel tool and a bench vise. Although these can be removed with a wrench, you'll find it much easier with a vise.

I don't agree that there's no reason to do this except for freewheel breakdown. I've found that it's the best way to clean a freewheel and regular removal obviates the need for later struggle with a bound freewheel.

Yesterday I managed to remove one of those large diameter Sachs-Maillard freewheels without destroying it, using a pair of Vise-Grips and a large Crescent wrench. I removed the axle to make room for the Vise-Grips, then I grabbed from the splines out to the second or third cog with the Vise-Grips. I braced the wheel against my workbench and used the Crescent wrench to twist the Vise-Grips. I had to support the Vise-Grips with my hand so they didn't pop loose from the angle they were being twisted. The freewheel was on pretty tight, but it eventually popped loose. The only damage to the freewheel was a couple of scratches in the surface of one of the cogs.

I always put anti-sieze compound on the threads and only screw them on hand tight to make future removal easier.

Thanks for all the replies. I learned two things here:
1. Exact writing is important. What I meant to say was that I wanted to cleasn the cog in some solvent, no the freewheel.
2. It seems a lot of work. I decided not do it. Instead I scrubbed down the cogs with dishwashing liquid and a good strong brush. I then flushed the ratcheting mechanism with some lightweight oil. It looks clean and hardly make any noise anymore. For now it will do.

Now on to the bottom bracket.....

Thanks, Duppie

When cleaning freewheels I prefer not to use a solvent or any cleaning agent that breaks down the grease or lubricating oil. Like someone mentioned, unless you are willing to completely disassemble and dry the component after cleaning with a solvent, some solvent residue will remain and possible affect the peformance, over time, of any new lube you apply. For this reason I use 100% paraffin lamp oil to clean all my lubricated parts. It does a good job removing contaminants in the grease and oil, but any residue left over will not break down nor affect the lubricating quailties of any new grease or oil I apply.

OK, I hate people that bump threads and create zombie threads - but I ran across this thread searching for a Maillard freewheel tool. Figured I didn't really want the tool or freewheel anyways so this was worth a try.
Put a piece of chain across the cog teeth, clamped the Vice Grips on, used a huge screwdriver through the jaws and the freewheel just wound right off. Thanks [MENTION=43435]Pompiere[/MENTION].

Wow, was that ten years ago? Glad I was able to help. My dad grew up on a farm and never had a lot of money, so he taught me how to fix a lot of things. Improvising when you didn't have the right tool was part of that.

There is really nothing wrong with the old two notch designed freewheels from Mailard and similar brands from that time. Just make sure you use a spare skewer to lock down the removal tool on to the freewheel body, before you put a wrench on it.
I Removed countless Maillards and Atom freewheels using a skewer without any problems or damage to the notches of these freewheels.
Just remember that the skewer is just used to "crack" off the freewheel from the hub threads and it should be loosened /removed once you get it starting to turn.
I even use a skewer on splined removers for splined bodied freewheels like Reginas because they tend to really get get stuck on to hubs for some reason and 100% stability with the tool against the freewheel really helps to just worry about putting the force down on the wrench I am using, and not worrying at all if the tool is slipping out of the freewheel body splines.

Smaller ones to show scale. The big one was used on some bikes from the '70s and seldom out of the toolbox after that.Removers1.JPG

Removers2.JPG

Yep, that's the one I would have needed. I'll have to mention this trick to the guys at the co-op, they were stumped too.