so a question.
how do i pull the cassettes of this wheel. i went to the co-op and they didn't know how to pull them off...
o know this doesn't give a good example of how it looks.
and the bike shop has the cassettes i need for about 12 bucks but with a new chain and labour its going to be about 40 bucks...

so is it easy to pull those off...

ug cassette hub? 2 chain whips one on the small cog one on one of the bigger. turn the small cog counter clock...

Turn it tough!

Then spend the next 15 years looking for a replacement. Are you sure you need a new one? might me easier cheaper to get a new wheel. But then that 12t cog will make someones fixed gear really fast/

It's a freewheel, not a cassette. You need the right freewheel tool and likely a good amount of arm strength.
Check Park Tool, and their website, to see which you need.
-Gene-

Did they have Uniglide Cassettes with only five speeds? Why don't you pull the wheel out and show us what the end of the freewheel looks like?

That looks like it's only 5 speed? Were there 5 speed UG's? If it's not a UG, it's a freewheel. You need the right freewheel tool to remove it - a bike coop is likely to have it.

But then you need to replace it with a freewheel, not a cassette, so your plans may need to change.

To help us better identify it, get a closeup photo of the freewheel body, after you've removed the wheel and quick-release from it.

EDIT: Yeah, what garage sale GT said.

There were UniGlide freewheels. UG refers to twisted teeth, although it has come to mean the older style of retaining a cassette on a freehub with a threaded sprocket. I don't know if the UG freewheels OR cassettes came in 5 speed, though.

ok here it is...

well the reason i wanted to change em is becuase when i shift there is some grinding, and slipping. well i took it in to the bike shop and told them what was happening one of the mechanics told me most times its the chain, or the freewheel, there were some broken teeth on the cogs.


when i first was going to clean the wheel. i was able to take of the bolt but that was about it.

Ya gotta take that nut off and find the right freewheel tool it will be splined and fit right in those grooves you see. Most bike shops should have at least one old mechanic that knows how to remove it, provided they have the right freewheel tool.

That is a older 6 speed cassette,I just removed one off of a panasonic DX2000 the other day you will need two chain whips or one chain whip an old chain and a vice,the way I did mine was wrap a old chain around the big cog and champed the chain ends in a vice and used my chain whip on the small cog and turn it counter-clockwise as was said before it will be tight but once it breaks free just unscrew it the rest of the way off and the remaining cogs will slide off as a assembley( I gave mine a little shot of CRC first.

DON'T TAKE ANY NUTS OFF! YOUR WHEEL BEARINGS WILL NEED READJUSTING IF YOU DO!

Yes, that is an old uniglide cassette. I had one for a while.

The end sprocket is threaded and it holds the rest on. They slide on over splines on the freehub body and the top sprocket holds them on because it's threaded. It is threaded in the conventional direction: CW tighten, CCW loosen.

You can get NOS or used ones on Ebay, but yours looks fine.

I think you may have gotten used to shifting a modern Hyperglide under power. It's hard to tell from a brief description but your shifting sounds fine. It wasn't as smooth under power as it is today.

The teeth are shaped to allow better shifting. I don't think the ends are broken off. Clearly the shop didn't know what it was because it can be disassembled with the simplest of bike tools.

Anyway, don't shift under power and if you must have a new cassette check if you want to pay the price because the price of NOS ones is going up.

I think you may get better shifting if you don't pull the wheel all the way back in the dropout. Try moving it forward about 3/8" to 1/2" and see what happens.

The first time I saw one of these, I thought I had received defective goods. That is most certainly not the case however. Those teeth are designed that way.

It is possible the cogs on the freewheel are worn, but if the chain is pretty old, that will definitely need to be changed, and you may find things much improved after doing that. You can easily find a perfectly serviceable chain for under $15.00, (a seven speed Z chain would be ideal for your drive train, IMO) which you can replace yourself if you have a chain tool. If things are still not shifting satisfactorily, you might then consider changing the freewheel.

Other potential causes of shifting problems such as you described are:

Derailleur adjustment
Derailleur cage is bent
Wheel position in dropouts

Good luck, and feel free to come back if you have questions/problems.

thanx for the help...

well i also noticed the wheel is out of true so ill have to have that taken care of first.
then ill probally get a new chain for it.

thanx for the help...

Try Dirtdrop's suggestion to pull the wheel a bit forward in the drops. That's fast, easy and free - and it may completely fix the problem.

That is a six speed Uniglide...it requires one chain whip to hold the main body and another to remove the small cog which comes off counter clockwise.

The new mechanics I work with are always baffled when they see these and I actually save old Uniglide cassettes because every once in a while, someone needs one.

Finding a replacement will be pretty difficult unless you have a co-op like ours and an old geezer like me that saves all these odd bits.

And from Sheldon Brown...

Uniglide Ū

The older Shimano cassette sprockets used a "twist-tooth" design, called "Uniglide." They had 9 identical splines (tabs) that would slide into matching grooves on the freehub body. Spacer washers would fit between each pair of sprockets. 5- and 6-speeds used 3.65 mm spacers, 7-speed generally 3.1 mm, 8-speed 3.0 mm.
Sprockets smaller than 14 teeth used a built-in spacer, but the other splined sprockets were reversible, so that if you wore out one side, you could flip them over and the other side was just like new! Sprockets with a built-in spacer were available in 5- 6-speed or 7- 8-speed versions.

The smallest sprocket on a Uniglide cassette was not splined, it was threaded. The threads of this sprocket would hold everything else together.

To remove a Uniglide cassette, you need two chain whips, one to hold the cassette, the other to unscrew the smallest sprocket.

To dismantle a Uniglide cassette, turn the smallest sprocket counterclockwise with a chain whip, while holding the cluster from turning backwards with another chain whip, or with the chain of the bicycle. Dura-Ace freehubs used a different, smaller thread, which worked only with Dura-Ace threaded sprockets. (Formerly, you could get an 11 tooth threaded cog for Dura-Ace, but this has been discontinued.)

Uniglide cassettes are no longer available. If you have a hub that uses Uniglide cassettes, the best thing to do is to upgrade the hub by transplanting a Hyperglide body onto it.

Alternatively, you can fit Hyperglide sprockets onto a Uniglide body by grinding or filing off the one wide spline. This is not particularly difficult. You'll still need a threaded Uniglide sprocket for the top-gear position. Supplies of these are getting scanty.

A freehub transplant is the best soluton oif the wheel is still good.

c'mon. You're six years younger than me, and I'm not old.

Finally. I wondered what the hell was wrong with the freewheel on my Centurion.

I have an early six-speed casette too!

(You have no idea how many times I sat in the garage and stared at what I thought was just a freewheel from hell. Go figure, it was a casette! )

Yes you are,

When is the big 5-0 party ?

My little sister's centurion has a Uniglide and when that cassette dies I'll be transplanting a new free hub into it and probably upgrading the drive to an 8 or 9 speed.

You already missed it - 30 days ago. I was kind of disappointed to find there was no special delivery of a rare, old Peugeot city bike on my birthday. I'll get over it though.

this made me laugh out loud.
cause i was doing the same thing but probably not as long.


thank you for the help...
what ill probably do is get the wheel trued then adjust the wheel so it isn't in the drops all the way.
then we will see what happens.


does that sound like the route to go?.
i really don't want to spend alot of money on it until i have to
thanx!

BTW.....you only need 1 chain wip.

Throw it back in the biake and shift into the bigest cog and then use a single whip on the smallest one. It can get a little in there but it works.

did anyone even read my first post. It has all the kungfu you will need. Maybe I should lay off the Vicodin? I am imagining my imaginary posts.

Gene you noticed my post! You were wrong though. How old are you anyhow?
-toast