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Brought a second hand bike the other day and it’s got a 9 speed cassette that just will not budge. I’ve tried 2 local shops, one of which bent their chain whip !
Loaded it with GT85 tonight but will that be enough ? Any suggestions guys ?
It's probably rotated slightly and bitten into the softer aluminium splines on the freehub.
It can be difficult to reverse this as you can't really hold the freehub AND tap the cassette back the other way as it'll just spin obvs. You may be able to hold the ou outer rings with one chain whip and rotate the bigger ones the other way with another if it's a two part cassette.
When I get this I normally remove the disc and try to tap from the other side with a mallet(any old spanner near me) and a drift(any old metal rod thing). This normally loosens things.
Sometimes, this method has resulted in the freehub coming out but if that happens you can normally then grip it in a soft jawed vice.
I take it the cassette lock ring is off?
Assuming the cassette is now sacrificial, old screwdriver & a hammer, knock it about a bit.
I suspect it's gouged out it's own groves on the freewheel and a bit of percussive maintenance could free it up a bit.
chain whip bent implies they can't even get the lockring off?
As above would imply its bound / gouged on to the splines. You should - if lockring off - be able to remove some of the outer cogs individually, unless its a budget cassette and bonded together.
Time for a new bike 🙂
If, as above, the cassette is locked to the freehub then, depending on the hub, you might be best sacrificing and replacing the freehub rather than trying to separate it from the cassette. Removing/replacing the freehub is easier on some hubs than others.
Recently used a Lidl telescopic car wheel nut wrench which fitted a shimano lock ring 'socket' - scary amount of force / wheel flexing involved but we got the lock ring off
If lockring not off: Really big lever on it, 6' scaffhold pole or something and don't be afraid to give it some welly, full-body weight stuff. Hole the cassettee tool on by putting the skewer back through. Big bench vice and two blocks of wood to replace the chain whip.
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If lockring is off: what Jim said, really bash it (in the right direction, so in the same plane as the wheel, 90 degrees to the hub, you are trying to turn it not bash it off) Cassette is probably buggered anyway so don't be gentle with it. When it goes it will usually all come loose at once
Wow, thanks for the ideas guys be trying (probably all of) those tomorrow.
Yeah, the lock ring is still on so at least there is (for now anyway) something to grab onto.
Now where’s my hammer ?
The funny thing is, now all the cuts and abrasions are healing, I did the Brighton Evans ride on the bike 2 days after getting it. Schoolboy error ! For some reason I didn’t really check anything except putting it on a workstand and getting the gears working enough before changing it all AFTER the weekend.
I had a massive off on chalk and loose stone - not the bikes fault I must stress then did the other 22 miles with a dead leg which eventually led to 2 hamstrings knotting on every hill. Having climbed up to Ditchling Beacon, I was on the ground as my mate was holding my foot up trying to relieve the pain I was in - the non drive crank arm fell off ! Brilliant timing 😂
EVERYTHING was loose and hardly needed a tool to undo it EXCEPT the cassette.
I know someone who couldn't budge a worn out cassette, he did the quick released cassette tool in a vice trick but used an SDS plus drill on chisel setting, it worked a treat after destroying half the cogs though.
I'd wrap an old chain around the cassette, then trap the chain in a vice, use quick release through the cassette tool then use a long pipe over the wrench about 2 foot will move it or nothing will.
Garden hoe onto an adjustable spanner (take rubber bung of end of hoe handle), which is onto the lock ring tool.
Use this method for an old freewheel that had stuck on, and since with a frehub lockring. Works, it's a 6 ft spanner.
If I need to take the WI freewheel off my single speed rear wheel, it's four prong freewheel tool and a 1/2" socket on a 3 foot jointed breaker bar.
If you have a vice, hold the splined cassette tool in the vice pointing up, place wheel onto cassette tool and then use a chain whip with a longest bar possible to get most grip. Use the chain whip on the biggest cog on the cassette to get most grip, so less chance of chain slipping.
This is much easier than trying to turn both chain whip and cassette removal tool in opposite directions
If chain whip won't work and you not bothered about the cassette, use a big set of stillsons on the cassette.
Can’t wait to try all these ! Something has got to give....
What hub is it?
Have you tried a proper penetrating oil for stuck bolts (rather than gt85) and heat on it? Heat should expand the aluminium freehub more than the lock ring, breaking any corrosion layer between the two.
A long lever helps too of course.
Get a mate to hit it with a hammer, through a suitably sized socket/rod/insert your choice here, while you apply force to the end of a 6' piece of gas pipe with a spanner in the end. Or use an actual impact wrench. It do terminal damage to the freehub though.
Impact wrench has always worked for us, we use a makita 18v battery one with a 1/2 inch adapter. Could just pop to local garage/ tyre depot and I'm sure they will whizz it off. Just make sure it's in reverse
Get a mate to hit it with a hammer, through a suitably sized socket/rod/insert your choice here, while you apply force to the end of a 6′ piece of gas pipe with a spanner in the end
An impact driver applies a sharp rotational force which is very useful. Bashing on the face is not entirely unhelpful but much less useful and much more likely to cause damage to the freehub and hub. It would make more sense to hit the end of the spanner to apply a similar force to an impact driver.
The goal of hitting the face is to reduce the friction on the faces of the threads while applying constant rotational force. The way the type of impact wrench I have works is that it does deliver some of the impact down onto the face of the fastener in addition to the rotational force. If you don't have a proper impact wrench it works better than hitting the end of the spanner in my experience. It is next to impossible to recreate the effect of an impact wrench manually. I suppose the speed is crucial.
Just make sure it’s in reverse
This. It takes far less time to double check it's in reverse than to remove the shorn bolt.
I have done the suggestion with the vice and blocks of wood, only not bothering with the blocks of wood. Not recommended if you want to use the cassette again, but if it's gone it's gone.
No mention of the decathlon chain whip yet?
wheel on the floor with this in place of a normal chain whip, hit the lockring tool lever with a mallet and you'll be victorious
I’ve had great success in the past with pouring a full kettle of boiling water over the lockring.
