Freewheel lubricant?

[Pablo]

Freewheels loaded with some type of nasty Taiwan grease. Thick, stinky, yellow exudate. Dries puke orange and smells worse.

The best feature is that it fails in use causing one pawl to stick and it's downhill from there. I'm thinking grease is not the best lube for the job.

So what is a good freewheel lubricant?

 

[hate2work]

From our friend Google...

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Freewheels should be oiled from time to time with a medium-weight oil. This is easy to do, and generally requires no disassembly.
The bike should be held with the rear wheel off the ground, and leaning to the left at about a 45 degree angle. An assistant may be helpful for this. Turn the pedals around a couple of times to get the wheel spinning fast, then let it coast (helps to be in high gear for this.)

Look inside the smallest sprocket. The sprocket will be stationary, since the wheel is coasting, but you'll see an inner part of the freewheel that is spinning with the wheel. Drip oil onto the crack between the turning part and the stationary part. Gravity and capillary action will help work oil into the freewheel.

Repeat this a few times, until you hear a change in the sound of the clicking pawls (they'll generally get quieter when the oil reaches them.)

This should be done every year or so, or any time that coasting sounds loud and gritty.
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Pablo, I'm sure Amsoil makes something that would work well

 

[Pablo]

"medium-weight oil" hmm....we were thinking ATF (too light), maybe 5W-20 racing oil, or a light MTF....

 

[mpvue]

we always used Phil's Tenacious Oil for freewheels in the shop. it's thick, I would say a 30wt, but smelled like 90wt gear oil.

 

[Pablo]

Hmm...sounds like a good MTF may be just the ticket!

Thanks fellas!!

 

[pickled]

I use spray grease...does the job.

 

[Pablo]

I tried synthetic spray grease, seems a little thick......

 

[mpvue]

http://www.philwood.com/Phil Tenacious Oil.htm

I don't know what's in it, they ain't sayin', but it is great. it's green, and like I said, reminds me of what I used to put in my muncie 4 speed.

 

[pickled]

That's cool too I've just used the spray grease and it seems to keep me in good graces with the bearing gods. Front hubs always get hit with acetone and then s2000 racing grease to replace the cheap oxidized goo the fureners pack in there!

 

[oilboy123]

I used some old Mobil 1 5w-30 last time. Seems to work well.

 

[Pablo]

Made my own tenacious lube!!!

Awesome stuff.

 

[JHZR2]

75w-140 diff oil???

 

[rpn453]

Shimano freehubs start to stick at around -33C with the stock grease, so I used to flush it out with solvent, dry it, and then bathe it in 0W-30 while spinning it to work the oil in. I'm sure any decent oil will work. I've never had a freehub/freewheel failure.

 

[oilboy123]

I just used 5w-30 ASL for the mtn bike I am trying to get up and going.

Darn, maybe I should have used 15w-40 instead?

 

[tdi-rick]

In a Chris King hub I use their grease, which is a syn type heavy oil, (they recommend a non detergent syn oil if you don't have their stuff, and I can't remember the weight !) and in a DT Swiss Hügi hub I use their recommended grease, which happens to be a moly fortified Dow Corning 'paste' for machine bed slides !
Of course bot these hubs are non conventional in engagement, so not worth a pinch of poop as recommendations for a normal spring engaged pawl type hub.

In a [censored] Taiwan freewheel I just used some Neo Z12 general purpose grease (thought it'd be too thick being an NLGI #2) and it worked fine till I built my first CK wheelset quite a few years ago.