Coaster to freewheel?

[JaxRhapsody]

Is there a way to take a coaster brake wheel and remove the inner pads, etc, making it a freewheel?

 

[danthrift71]

Yes. Saw some decent videos on youtube. Also good thread here in how to section.

 

[Bicycle808]

Typically, though, the "take the guts out" method of the cheapie freecoaster will fry the hub out in relatively short order.. I've got a C/B hub with a threaded driver that can take a freewheel, and I believe I'll try that one of these days.

 

[JaxRhapsody]

why would it fry the hub?

 

[Bicycle808]

If you've ever repacked a c/b hub, you've noticed that everything sandwiches together, keeping it all tight. If you remove the brake shoes, you'll create a gap, and there'll be more play elsewhere in the hub. That will kill bearings and I suspect it'll hurt the drive mechanism too. You'll also find that you're likely to have engagement problems, where you turn the crank most of the way around before it "grabs"...

A lot of folks, bitd, used to weld freewheels to the driver. This isn't my style, but it makes sense on cheap cb hubs with readily available parts, like the KT or the Shimano cb-e110. You'll need to replace the driver when the freewheel dies, but that's cheap and easy....

110mm freewheel hubs cost, like, $8. Just sayin'.

 

[Bendix]

if you're running a bendix, suntour, or shimano cb you can usually find a NOS coaster-freewheel adapter from the old school bmx days on ebay. ;-)

 

[Bicycle808]

if you're running a bendix, suntour, or shimano cb you can usually find a NOS coaster-freewheel adapter from the old school bmx days on ebay. ;-)

That's golden... wonder how much they're going for these days? I'll have to check eBay out (just for curiosity's sake; I'm a big fan of threaded-driver VS hubs....