Splitting Maillard Freewheel

Still looking for a nice spread of gears for my raleigh banana, I bought a 7speed 13-25 freewheel. I wanted to split it, and mount the sprockets on my existing body, 13 and 15t sprockets were threaded, but with a little 'persuasion' they came off, 17 and 19 were unthreaded as I expected, but 21 (5 of 7) refuses to move. Have soaked overnight in wd40, and succeeded only in breaking the chain whip chain! Do you think this sprocket would be threaded?

Yes I guess I could have tried removing my freewheel to fit this, but I'm far more comfortable fitting sprockets, and can't risk damaging my corsa rec hub!

Are the spacers a red colour?

Just as I was leaving for Uni in 1978, 7 speeds were around and how they worked were all over the place

Shan

No red spacers, they look green at the larger sprockets ?

i am just trying to think back to the maillard sprocket board in the bike shop and i'm almost 100% certain that the lower geared sprockets (ie the ones that sit nearest your spokes) were all notched rather than threaded.

you should be able to see the shape of the notch by looking at it where it bears against the freewheel body. these were shaped like a bracket symbol on your keyboard:

(

i think that these notches were offset so that the sprocket could only fit on in one particular way and i think that there were three or four of them per sprocket.

however, if you cannot see these wee notches and the sprockets are fixed solid, then i think that you're going to have to refer to the previous gent's remarks and consider them threaded on, which i don't recall.

jeeeez .. . i haven't thought about that for around a hundred years or more!!



ps a photo or two might help us old codgers figure it out

Hi guys.

I'll make a slight correction - first three sprockets were all threaded (13-15-17) but it cant be a coincidence these are all slightly corroded steel, where the 19 that was unthreaded and slotted is a different finish entirely, and has almost no corrosion on it. You guessed it, the troublesome sprocket (21) is indeed corroded steel. Pic from the back show 25 and 23 as slotted and same gun metal finish as 19.

So I guess It looks like its threaded...

Any suggestions on how to free it ? previous technique had been a short length of scaffolding slotted over one of the chainwhips, and application of elbow grease. It seems to need more strength than my whips will cope with...

i can't quite make it out from your photos, but if that end sprocket on the body doesn't have the three wee notches shown on the other ones, then it has to be screwed on.

The green one is a "compact" version. A 5 speed body, and with the green spacers and special other cogs it is made into a 6 gear. The number 3 is indeed a threaded one. And probably a 6 speed body can be changed into a 7 speed.

biggest 2 are splined, 3rd one in is threaded, 4th splined, 5th & 6th threaded. 7 speed requires a different 6th smaller sprocket into which the 7th threads (ie 7th doesnt thread onto the freewheel body, it threads into the next sprocket up which contains a second internal thread).
They will index with shimano 7 speed systems or campag 8 speed.

Cracking - thanks all for your input. Now to get the bl**dy thing off !

As I'd trashed one of my chain whips, I thought I could make a "virtual" whip, by taking a solid old plank, and screwing in a handful of screw, against the largest sprocket - and then use the remaining chain whip to lever the sprocket off. After a couple of tries, guess what - I broke the chain of my remaining whip !

The freewheel that I'm putting this onto doesn't need a locking 3rd sprocket - and I have a non threaded 21T already.

I'm now open to suggestions that involve sacrificing this threaded socket to get to the sprockets behind it !

Any ideas guys ?