Shop carefully and you can find 6 speed (or 5) Everest, Regina, Suntour, Maillard and Atom freewheels for reasonable prices on a well-known on-line auction website. :shock:
One of the lads at one of my local LBS's said that 5 and 6 wheel clusters hardly ever wear out because they are so well made - I think he has a point (but look carefully at the pics in any listings).
I've got an old Maillard 14/24T 6 speed freewheel what came off my Raleigh it's in good working order, you can have it for a couple of quid if you want to collect I'm just outside Alfreton.
Many thanks for your kind offer big Dave .I am after a 14 /28 for a friends Revell touring bike I have just rebuilt . Present nos Suntour is very noisy . I have oiled it well but it still sounds like a can of nails .
No Probs, Even new shimano freewheels are noisy, they are made in 3 different countries and each is a slightly different design and different levels of noise, I bought a few of them then tried a couple sunrace freewheels which sounded even worse, and as you say even after oiling them, but in all fairness once your riding the bike they don't sound bad at all. Buying new unfortunately you are limited to ratios available with freewheels. I've just bit the bullet and gone freehub/cassette.
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Top mechanic in my LBS help me out with a hard-to-find-12-34-6-speed-freewheel a while back and he reckons the the one I took off my old Raleigh (1987 vintage) would probably have lasted for ever. Unlike modern cassettes which need replacing everytime they get a bit of mud on.
+1 .8 speed is enough for me as a norm . However constant changing of spec by Campag and Shimano is making things difficult for spares .I have had a stock for Miche 8 speed cassettes to use on my 8 sp campag hubs . They are not quite as well made as campag ,though iam told they made the cassettes for campag? .