Removing a Freewheel
 

I have a 1979 Raleigh Super Grand Prix, and I want to replace the freewheel hub with a freehub. I am wondering if, in this case, I can remove the freewheel or if I would have to get a new wheel and hub.

http://www.kurtkaminer.com/TH_raleigh_cat_us79.html

That's the best I can do for specifications.

No, you have a freewheel hub. Totally, completely different technology.


Sheldon Brown site will walk you through the differences.


+1 to below, you can continue to buy and replace freewheels with new freewheels.

The freewheel can be removed and replaced independently- You could search for a remover with the brand of the freewheel itself- back then, there were more sizes and designs of removers- so be careful. A bike shop usually takes them off for 5 dollars or so, and usually has a big vice to hold the remover, which makes it easier. Look at "Bikemanforu" on ebay- search removers, and he posts little instruction videos, for more info
http://www.ebay.com/itm/FR-1-Bicycle...item3f0d0d394c

thanks for catching that.

I did read the Sheldon Brown site btw. So I took another look, and it seems that to replace the hub, I would have to buy the freehub and re-spoke the wheel.

You would also have to find something with the same width between the dropouts.

I'm probably gonna take the wheel into my LBS to have them help me pick out the right parts to use

You may have a wheel spaced at 120mm, hard for me to say on 79. It is probably spaced to 126. Freehub hubs don't come in 120 (some one will correct me if I am wrong).
126 you should be in business, except most bike shops won't have a 126mm freehub. Again, at least I don't think so. It might be a lot less work to just get another freewheel.

Listen to this man.

How many cogs? If it is 6 then you probably have 126mm spacing. But more to the point, do you really want to go to the trouble and possible expense of striping down and rebuilding the wheel to replace the hub? Freewheels are cheap!

Change the gearing up front a little, and you will end up with as many useable, unredundant gears as a modern 9-speed will give you. Out of the 18 gears, about half are duplicates or close to it.

If you do decide to replace the hub, go ahead and replace the entire wheel. The spokes and rim usually wear out before the hub does, and it seldom makes sense to lace an old rim onto a new hub, although it is often reasonable to do the opposite.