reverborama

I have a wheelset that I plan to use for a bike I'm building for my wife. It's a pair of nice Dura-Ace hubs laced into some new DT-Swiss rims. The freehub body is Uniglide which, combined with being DA makes it hard to find cassettes. I thought this was going to be a 7-speed body, but I can't seem to find any 7-speed DA-Compatible cassettes. Are the 5 and 6 speed cassettes going to fit on this body? And would they use the same chain? I think it will work but I don't want to buy the parts unless I'm sure.

SoreFeet

See the Sheldon brown archives for a photo. You might have to swap the freehub body. If you can swap the hyperglide you will be set.

reverborama

Yeah, I've looked at Sheldon's page. I'm not interested in swapping the body. I just want to find a cassette that will fit on the Uniglide body.

mrmw

here, take your pick...
https://loosescrews.com/index.cgi?c=C...d=367209526744

To move beyond 6 speed to 7, 8, 9 or 10 speeds, a freehub body transplant is in order. Loosescrews.com has them too.

Old Fat Guy

I have 6 and 7 speed DA Uniglide. The only difference is the thickness of the spacers, and on a the 7 speed, the cog in the second position has a built in spacer.

The cogs are interchangeable other than that.

cudak888 

#1: True UG freehub bodies are not swappable with a 10mm hex. Later hybrids with threading for both HG or UG installation + HG spline pattern should be swappable.

#2: 7-speed UG cassettes exist as OFG mentions, and you can make them too - it just takes an extra cog, some 7-speed HG spacers, and present-day HG, IG or UG 7-speed narrow chain. You're stuck using the UG threaded cog to lock it down unless you have one of the composite cassette hubs. Do not confuse the present UG 7-speed chain with traditional UG 6-speed chain variants, as would have been originally spec'ed in the '80s and early '90s.

As for sources, I've found that many a bike - even low midrange of the '80s - are not uncommon to find with UG cogs and cassettes on them, and unlike Hyperglide, you can mix and match cogs to your heart's content. Worn cog? No problem, flip it 180 degrees and take advantage of the unworn section. Only drawback is that reasonably lightly used threaded cogs are not common, and nearly every example you'll come across will be worn for one reason or another. Not particularly pretty to flip these around either.

-Kurt

markk900

One other thing to keep in mind - some of the UG cogs (not sure if the older or newer ones) have a set of 3x 1" long thin bolts that pass through all the cogs and thread into the locking cog, while some are just held in place by the splines and the threaded small sprocket. Wasn't aware of the significance until I bought one of the larger sprockets from Loosescrews (great service btw) and found out I needed a cog with the holes for the screws.....took ah hour or so with a file and the drill press to modify the sprocket to fit.....

Mark

reverborama

OK, so what I'm hearing is:

A) The difference between uniglide cassettes has to do with the width of the spacers, so 5, 6, and 7-speed cogs should be the same.

B) A modern HG 7-speed chain should work fine.

Now the big question: While the 5 and 6-speed cassettes on Loose Screws mention whether they are DA compatible or not, the 7-speed cassettes make no mention of this. Are the 7-speed cassettes compatible with both DA and non-DA? And what makes them compatible or not, anyway? The threading of the locking cog or something? Something about the splines?

masi61

The brown 7 speed uniglide cassette (here: *Shimano UG 7 speed Cassette 13-15-17-19-21-23-25) on Loose screws would have the correct spacers, the threaded, locking cog would be too big in diameter unfortunately. You would need to use your old threaded cog to make it work. Not sure, but you may be able to buy the Dura Ace 6 speed one and change the spacers. The problem with this it that the 2 smallest cogs (the smallest threaded one, and the 2nd position one) have their own spacers built in so if you went with the 6 speed, it might not index properly since the spacing with be off by like 0.1mm, just enough to be aggravating .
A quick check on ebay yielded no locking 7speed dura ace cogs but take a gander back at Loose Screws: individual cogs section and bingo: https://loosescrews.com/index.cgi?d=s...d=367209526744 (here your stuck with a 14 tooth 1st position,
not sure but you may then need to get the 2nd position Dura Ace 7/8 speed cog as well. If you get the 14 tooth, you'll need a 15 or 16 tooth 2nd position cog and you seem to be out of luck back at Loose Screws.
Back to ebay and all I could find was this: https://cgi.ebay.com/NOS-Shimano-Dura...2em118Q2el1247,
in which case you would need a 12 tooth threaded cog.
As you can see, this gets pretty frustrating. My advice would be to watch ebay like a hawk and check on "uniglide" on a regular basis, or Dura Ace 7400 or Dura Ace 7 speed, and eventually the item that you desire will pop up.

masi61

Here's a 2nd position 14 tooth that would work: https://cgi.ebay.com/Shimano-Dura-Ace...QQcmdZViewItem.
you still are gonna need a 12 or 13 tooth threaded DA cog though.

reverborama

Ok, now I'm beginning to understand. The Dura-Ace compatibility problem has to do with the lockring diameter. So if I pick up one of the 6-speed cassettes at Loose Spokes, I will have the correct Lock-Ring cog (and I don't have any now). If I want to go to 7 speed, I'd probably have to buy a 7-speed cassette and use the 6 largest cogs and their spacers (some built in) to have even spacing. That actually isn't important to me -- a six speed is fine. I think this will work out fine for the project.

Thanks to all of you for the quick responses. Love this forum!

cudak888 

They thread into the second to the last cog. If the bolts threaded directly into the lockring cog, removal of the locking cog would be physically impossible.

As for re-using the bolts - it is unnecessary. They have a small hex at the back - unscrew them, and re-assemble the cassette without them. They do not serve any purpose but to keep the cogs together for easy servicing.

-Kurt

markk900

Kurt: of course you are correct about where the bolts thread...typing before thinking!

I wasn't sure if there was any reason to keep them but I did since it wasn't that hard to adapt the new cog to that system.....thanks though - if I take it apart again I'll leave them out....

Mark