Rear wheel used old 7 speed shimano Deore DX freehub which was on a mates old bike. He had no issues…

Got everything set up last night and went for quick spin. Crack, slip once every couple of pedal turns.

Was late sop chucked the bike in the garage….

I used an old 7 speed shimano HG chain I had lying in garage where and used the chaintool to take out links and re-connect. The reconnected links a bit tight so worked them looser – but did I do it enough I wonder?

Thinks:

Stiff link on chain
Chain alignment not 1005 – but looks ok
Downward tensioner not aligned 100%
Dodgy rear sprocket – it is right on the outside of the freehub, but everything could be religned by running the front ring on the insider of the cranks.
Freehub needs service

Any other ideas?

the crack/slip thing is a Shimano freehub about to give up the ghost…

Freehub sounds like it doesn't want to play.
I don't use Shimano chains but I think you are meant to connect them with special pins or they break.
Try the tensioner upwards so you get more chain wrap.

Chain worn/not compatible with sprocket on rear ?. If it's a new rear cog…go buy a new chain. I always found mixing and matching resulted in mis-matching. New cog & chain always sorted it for me. You'll probably end up replacing both if one or the other is worn anyway.

When i SSed my old frame i found that the chain slipped even though it looked pretty taught and was using a tensioner. A halflink cured the problem.

Thanks all.

New 8 speed sram chain and powerlink ordered from CRC.

I'll try that to start. Reason is that I pedalled the old bike the rear wheel was on around couple of weeks back when it was geared and it was fine. Also my mate very, very rarely used the bike.

Still an issue and I'll try another wheel.

Appreciate it.

Had a similar thing setting up my brother's SS – crack, slip every pedal revolution. After eliminating all the other possibilities you mention above (chainline, chain, stiff links, sprocket, tension, chainring), finally tried a different rear wheel (and hence different freehub). Worked perfectly first time. The original was a hope xc hub – worked fine when set up geared, but crack, slip when in SS guise.

I had similar issues on my first SS attempt.

For me it turned out to be a slightly bent mech hanger. One every pedal stoke (under load) the chain would slip.

May be worth a look?

Mmmm….so why would a freehub be fine running geared and then crack and slip like a cracky and slippy thing when ss'd?

Torque? Cannot see why that would be the case – no more than running geared surely – obviously ratio dependant.

Chain-line? Again, if nice chainline with the ss why would this be so?

One of the great mysteries of life – well, to me anyways.

Sounds like the chain isn't tight enough tbh. I converted a 7 spd shimano hub/chain to SS recently and had the same problem with cracking/skipping and I first thought it was a tight link. Problem was I couldn't get the chain tight enough with the downward tensioner so didn't have enough engagement on the sprocket. The chain cracked and skipped when ever I put any power down but didn't if I peddled gently. Solved it by removing the tensioner, removed a few more links and luckly managed to get an ok chain length. btw I was using a 16t sprocket.

Well, tried 2 different wheels, including 1 ss which works perfectly on my other bike – it cracked and slipped too.

Took a link out of chain – chain too short to use 16t rear sprocket so swapped it for a 14 I had knocking about, tighter chain tension, works perfectly.

The chain did initially look tight enough, but obviously was not.

Thanks for the assistance folks..

32:14 is only a little harder than 32:14….I'm sure the change will be good for me….

Check the condition of the front sprocket too, if that's worn it could be the cause of your problems.