Freewheel Lockrings

[dave85]

Quick exercise for the grey matter, why would a FFW lockring want to be threaded opposite hand to a RFW lockring?

As far as I can see, the only forces acting to unscrew the lockring come from the relative motion between the inner and outer bodies, and thats the same wherever you put the freewheel.

So yeah, why do front freewheels come undone so often?

Edd

[ogre]

Because the direction in which you pedal unscrews the freewheel, you have to remember that everytime you start to pedal and the freewheel engages there is a little bit of a push on the freewheel, that isn't taken by the pawls etc, and you know how once you've started unscrewing something it gets realy easy? the same thing happens with a freewheel, it's quite obvious when you think about it, of course when it's on the rear, you tighten it.

[dave85]

The relative motion is the same, the outer always spins anti-clockwise compared to the inner (left hand freewheels excepted).

The little bit of motion before the pawls engage would loosen it, but why do we get the problem so much on the front and hardly ever on the back?

[ogre]

add me, ogrerules@hotmail.com i cba to post it on here, cause i can't post pictured so just add me..

[Josh Greenan!!!!!!!!!!]

The man in super cycles said it's because they carry more stress with being on the front. I'm not sure though.

[Mark W]

EDIT: Instead of that wankola post, I'll put what I was going to put in the PM here instead...

Because of the way that the lockring acts as a bearing race too, it means that when you stress the freewheel and the freewheel moves to the next engagement point, it's going to basically try and spin the lockring a little too. On the front, there's more force, yet on the rear there's less, meaning it can't force the lockring loose.

"AFAIK"