OK, most of us have prolly seen the how-to videos and/or forum posts about how to take a Shimano or Suntour coaster-brake hub, take much of the brake stuff out of it, and get a cheap freecoaster as a result. OTOH, most of us have probably seen/heard/read that such a "conversion" will blow up under actual use in just a little bit of time. Apparently, without the brake guts, the driver will bind up and fry the hub if you actually coast backwards for a l'il while.
My idea, which sidesteps some of this, would be to use a CB hub with a threaded driver, leave the brake on, and just put a regular English-threaded BMX freewheel on there. The drawbacks would be that it won't look trick, as the brake's reaction arm will still be on the hub and bolted to the NDS chainstay. Also, whatever "weight savings" this would create would not apply, as you'd keep the arm and the shoes. Lastly, even though it'd be there, the coaster brake wouldn't work (rear rim brakes'd be advised.)
The advantages would be:
-Cheaper, by far, than a real freecoaster.
-because all of the innards would remain, theoretically the wheel could roll backwards without binding up and exploding the hub. Or could it? I admittedly don't know enough about how a CB hub actually works to predict it. I test-fit a BMX freewheel on an un-laced CB hub I have, and spun the hub backwards for a minute, and it didn't seem to cause any problems, but that's why I came to you folks: Would this set-up suffer from the same reliability problems as the brake-elimination freecoaster conversions?
(Truth be told, I don't actually need a freecoaster for any of my current bikes. Like, not at all. But the threaded driver on a CB hub got me to thinking about the idea.....thoughts?)
My idea, which sidesteps some of this, would be to use a CB hub with a threaded driver, leave the brake on, and just put a regular English-threaded BMX freewheel on there. The drawbacks would be that it won't look trick, as the brake's reaction arm will still be on the hub and bolted to the NDS chainstay. Also, whatever "weight savings" this would create would not apply, as you'd keep the arm and the shoes. Lastly, even though it'd be there, the coaster brake wouldn't work (rear rim brakes'd be advised.)
The advantages would be:
-Cheaper, by far, than a real freecoaster.
-because all of the innards would remain, theoretically the wheel could roll backwards without binding up and exploding the hub. Or could it? I admittedly don't know enough about how a CB hub actually works to predict it. I test-fit a BMX freewheel on an un-laced CB hub I have, and spun the hub backwards for a minute, and it didn't seem to cause any problems, but that's why I came to you folks: Would this set-up suffer from the same reliability problems as the brake-elimination freecoaster conversions?
(Truth be told, I don't actually need a freecoaster for any of my current bikes. Like, not at all. But the threaded driver on a CB hub got me to thinking about the idea.....thoughts?)
