Thank you. I think you just held Armageddon off.

Bravo McDave and everyone! Saved me from scratching my head endlessly on this one.

Personally, I think these were a very clever idea. Wouldn't it be nice if we could use a small simple tool to quickly remove ANY modern cassette outside of our workshops.

If I did this right, here are 3 photo attachments showing how even the smaller diameter freewheels can be easily removed... AND... without even taking off your quick release skewer:

1. With the removal tool set on the knurled freewheel lockring.
2. Hub with lockring alone attached
3. Hub with the lockring removed to show the cross-threads.

Huh? What did I miss? Nothing has been solved as far as I can tell.

I guess you can take this to mean two different things...

"Top quality highly polished 700 Professionnel Helicomatic hubs use both an unusual cone and a uniquely fine threaded axle . Neither part is available. 700Pros use a larger chromed locknut in that special thread, also not available."

To me the "larger chromed locknut in that special thread" refers to "a uniquely fine threaded axle ". But I suppose you could take it to mean it's the lock ring on the hub for a larger freewheel. I dunno...

I purchased a second hand Helicomatic hub and freewheel a while ago and the vendor said he'd owned a MTB at one stage that had a different sized Helicomatic hub to the one I purchased. I'd asked him about the spanner for the hub and he only had the one for the other hub and not the one I'd purchased. He told me that he used to use a nut cracker that was the right size as a spanner
Sheldon Brown does have information on his site, but it's pretty plain that he doesn't like Helicomatics in any shape or form.

Well, at least we now have anecdotal evidence of there being a different size hub out there. I may not be alone!

Yeah, I've seen that and the same attitude in his posts in the cr archives. I've also seen other posts where the person has ridden Helicomatic hubs forever without a problem, so I thought I would go ahead and give this wheelset a second chance in life. The extra spokes taped to the seattube of the Peugeot is not a good sign though.

What were they thinking??? Should have been on the NDS chainstay

No. 700 Professional hubs still used the smaller diameter hub with the smaller bearings. They used a much finer axle thread than the standard hub with a larger chrome axle locknut...not a larger lockring to hold the freewheel onto the hub shell. 700 professional hub cones were finely polished like Campy Records and Dura-Ace cones.

I've seen and serviced many of the 700 Professional hubs as I'm sure others have.

Back in the day I threw out boxes of the lock ring tools. You can still find them on Ebay. If youn eed one PM me and I'll throw you the name of a shop that may have one.

You can fit more spokes on the larger diameter seattube? ROFL

Thanks for the info Jim. Back to square one. And I got the bottle opener tool from a C&V member here awhile back, so I'm good (for the normal freewheels). Thanks again.

Edit: One still has to wonder about the Sport hub with it's larger bearings. Was it larger overall including hub diameter, or did it have a smaller diameter axle which proved unreliable and the reason why they switched to smaller bearings instead on the other models? Seems like a larger hub would allow larger bearings and axles and solve all but the spacing problem.

My impression is the larger hub had 1/4 bearings with a standard diameter axle that was interchangable between the two.

Well, it seems evident to me that in any case a completely different and larger outer diameter Sport hub would be required for the larger diameter Sport freewheel. So, as far as McDave using the new freewheel on the existing hub... yer outta luck. But... if you ever do find the larger hub, you're back in business.

Unfortunately, I wouldn't have a clue where to look for one. However, since the Helicomatics (in one configuration or another) were used for several years on both mid-range Peugeots and on Trek touring bikes, perhaps a local shop which had sold either of these these during the mid 1980s would be a good starting point.

While I have never had any problems at all with spoke breakage after thousands of miles, I'm not at all thrilled with the shifting on the freewheels. I find that the sharply notched tops of the teeth can grab the narrow plates of modern narrower chains which are designed to more easily slide up onto amd off of profiled modern cogs. And this will cause chains to just skid along the tops of the cogs without falling into place. This is annoying. It tends to be more a problem with either new-old-stock or very lightly used freewheels where the tops of the teeth show no wear and still have deep and sharp "v-cuts" on the tops of the teeth. Perhaps the only solution is to simply revert to older style chains, ones actually intended for 5 or 6 speed freewheels exclusively, and which tend to have much wider side plates which are less inclined to fall quite so deeply into the splits on the cog teeth. A shame, since I like to use smooth and quiet modern 8-speed chains on most other 5-speed freewheels.

By the way, here is the latest city/commuter project bike I recently finished modifying (only slightly). It's a 1985 Peugeot mixte. Originally came with drop bars and a massive mattress saddle. The pearl white paint, decals, cranks, derailleurs, shifters are all original as are... you guessed it... the Helicomatic hubs and the 13-28 chrome 700 freewheel.

Note, we still have not determined that the Sport hub has a larger hub diameter, only that it uses larger 1/4" bearings. It stands to reason the hub would need to be larger too, but we don't know that as fact yet. Nor can we call this a Sport freewheel until that has been determined as there are no markings on the fw. (just trying to stay correct as these things tend to become "fact" on the Internet)

Sounds like a perfect candidate for the Bell chain that Walmart sells. I have them on most of my bikes and they are very smooth and quiet. Even though it's an 8 speed chain the only time I haven't been able to use one was on an 8 speed Shimano cassette. It was just a bit too wide and the side plates would make contact with adjoining cogs anytime the chainline wasn't perfectly straight.

Nice bike!

The Bell chain at WM is a TAYA replication of the old Shimano Uniglide 6 speed chain. It is NOT - despite what their "full of doo-doo" packaging may claim - for Shimano HG 7-speed, or for that matter, 8 (and you'll never get it to work right on any Shimano 8-speed job so long as you live - it ISN'T possible).

I've found the TAYA chain a perfect substitute to Uniglide chain, if being used on a Uniglide 6 or wide (not IG or HG) 7-speed freewheel. As the chain is nearly identical to that of the original Shimano chain, performance does not suffer a bit from the original stock.

I've also found good use in the TAYA chain on very widely spaced 5-speed freewheels, such as the Atom FWs used on Raleigh Sprites and Schwinn Varsities and Continentals. Provided that the freewheel won't skip with a new chain, I'd highly suggest the TAYA in these applications.

Cases in which to avoid the TAYA chain - besides the aforementioned caution not to use it on ANY Shimano IG or HG freewheels - include: Narrow-spaced Suntour Ultra freewheels, 8-speed Regina or Suntour freewheels, Regina 6 and 7-speed freewheels (cog spacing is a tad narrower on these - interferes with the wide TAYA chain plates) and any 5 or 6 speed freewheel with narrower spacing similar to Reginas - in fact, try to avoid using the TAYA chain on any 6-speed freewheel that does not have ramping similar to UG freewheels.

-Kurt

I'm running the Bell/TAYA chain on Shimano MF-HG37 7 speed freewheels on both my Voyageurs with Altus LT ders and couldn't be happier. Honest!

Wanted... helicomatic lockring (SMALL SIZE) I've just cracked my last one. Have several 700c wheels with maillard hubs fitted, but no lockrings.

Help..... Norfolk UK

p@remmington.plus.com

I have one of the large diameter Helicomatic hubs in my stash. I don't remember where it actually came from, but do know that I have had it for quite some time. I have checked it our and it has 1/4" bearings on both sides and labyrinth seals like those seen on Maxi-car hubs. The complexity of the sealing mechanism therefore points to an upscale version of the Helicomatic. It also has a solid axle which I suppose would point to a tandem or MTB use. It is a 36 spoke hole version.

Regular helicomatics had that mechanism for sealing. I can confirm as well that a large diameter did exist. Its no longer speculation.

It lives! They really do exist! So, do you want to sell it, and if not, would you like to buy a NOS 13 x 32T freewheeel for it? PM me.

I can't find the lock ring for the freewheel. If I find it, I'll let you know.

Thanks CdM. Getting these two together would be a good thing.