I've got a box - literally - of freewheels, and the 4 or 5 Shimano 600's I have are among my favorites. All mine come off with the regular Shimano freewheel tool, still easily available from Park and in most decent bike shops. Some of the older Shimano freewheels take the old style "boss" tool which is harder to find and harder to use - the inner diameter is small enough you actually have to remove the locknut to get the tool on. But I've never seen a 600 that uses this.
And putting the freewheel tool down in the bench vise and turning the wheel COUNTER CLOCKWISE has always worked for me. With tough ones I sometimes think I'm gonna bust a spoke, but it's never happened yet, and I've never been defeated by a truly stuck freewheel. I HAVE had some freewheels that gave me a devil of a time when I tried to dis-assemble them for cleaning. The Shimano ones with the little lockring are a bi*** because you can't start them with a chainwhip, but so far as I know, that doesn't include the 600's. 2 pluses on the 600's - they have a nice dustcap that does a pretty good job sealing the mechanism - though it can crack. And once you have it all broken down with cogs removed, the frreewheel has 2 oil ports (resembles Dura-Ace freewheels this way. May be the same freewheel as far as I can tell). I snag any cheap 600 freewheels I run across and have never regretted running one. Whoops - just looked at your picture. Um, nevermind. Haven't seen that one. On Apr 8, 1:07 pm, Minh <mgiangs...@gmail.com> wrote: > And for times when they get you into trouble. So i'll take the retro- > derailleur request from a recent thread to bring this up. For some > odd reason i've noticed that my inclination for bike parts leans > towards the old. After a dalliance with carbon fiber and suspension > in my youth (you should see my hardtail mt bike, carbon cranks from > 1998! magura brakes! carbon fiber suspension seat post!). at the old > age of 33 i'm only buying bike parts old then me or from an era older > then me. > > Anyway here's one of those situations where maybe i'm getting myself > into trouble buying the old stuff. I picked up this wheel recently > and it's an old phil wood design, from the pictures i'd guess early > 80's. Well it has a Shimano 600 freewheel, in general i love shimano > 600 stuff (two cranks, brakes, levers etc), but i'm hesitant to use > this wheel as is. The FW looks to be in ok condition. My concern is > that i've done some research and i know that getting this freewheel > off can be tricky, so i'm trying to decide now if i should attempt to > remove and replace with something more modern or ride it and pray that > i'll be able to remove it in a few years. This is an either or > because after reading the nightmares about getting this freewheel off > (and also tracking down the freewheel tool which is only made by one > small mfr still) i wouldn't re-mount it myself. > > And i really would like to use the hub for years to come, it's held up > this far no reason to think it won't keep going. > > http://www.flickr.com/photos/minhi/5599199529/ > > http://www.flickr.com/photos/minhi/5599781666/ > > And for those people who are going to tell me just to give up on > freewheels, sure i could've just gotten a shimano 105 cassette hub > wheel fort he same price, but i just love the fact that a 30 year old > phil wood wheel still spins smooth. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To post to this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch?hl=en.
