Wanted: 26" rear for ladies racer

I'm building up a singlespeed for my girlfriend out of a 70-80s ladies racer, the bike was in crappy condition but now everything is fine but the rear weel.. the 5 speed freewheel is in love with the hub and no way to separate them...I tried in every everything: few days bathing in WD-40, the proper tool, some improper tool, heavy hammer..no way.
the original wheel has a tyre of 26" X 1 1/4", the rim should be 1" wide...
anybody has an old one laying around?

Have you tried a vice + freewheel tool (loosely held on with axle) to get the freewheel off? That usually works as you can get maximum torque.

unfortunately I had the great Idea of getting the guy at two wheels good (crouch end LBS) to try that way as I didn't have the freewheel tool... result the cunt destroyed the cut for the tool on the freewheel and was anyway asking for 5 pounds for the time he lost trying that...

My best sugestion would be to get hold of a cheap mbt rear wheel. You should beable to get hold of one cheap or even free. You will have to use a different tyre though.

Your 26" X 1 1/4" rim has a diameter of 547 mm with a 1" 1/4 tyre give you an outer dimaiter of 31.75*2 +547 = 610.5 mm

A mbt rim (559 mm) with a 1.25" tyre will give you a 31.75*2 +559 = 622.5 mm outer diameter or with 1" tyre 25.4*2 +559 = 609.8 mm.

So if you have the clearance you of an extra 6.25 mm at the moment you can keep the same balloon of tyre on the bike and use an mbt wheel or drop down a tyre size and have a wheel 0.7 mm smaller in diameter.

You should have enough travel in your brakes to beable to cope with the small 6 mm shift in brake block height.

edit the 31.75 is 1.25" in mm and 25.4 is 1" in mm

My best sugestion would be to get hold of a cheap mbt rear wheel. You should beable to get hold of one cheap or even free. You will have to use a different tyre though.

Your 26" X 1 1/4" rim has a diameter of 547 mm with a 1" 1/4 tyre give you an outer dimaiter of 31.75*2 +547 = 610.5 mm

A mbt rim (559 mm) with a 1.25" tyre will give you a 31.75*2 +559 = 622.5 mm outer diameter or with 1" tyre 25.4*2 +559 = 609.8 mm.

So if you have the clearance you of an extra 6.25 mm at the moment you can keep the same balloon of tyre on the bike and use an mbt wheel or drop down a tyre size and have a wheel 0.7 mm smaller in diameter.

You should have enough travel in your brakes to beable to cope with the small 6 mm shift in brake block height.

edit the 31.75 is 1.25" in mm and 25.4 is 1" in mm

very good advice indeed.

If the bike will run 26's it would be well worth using mtb wheels instead as you could get hold of much better quality modern wheels for very little money.

One more thing if you go the mbt wheel route you have to alter the spacing and a slight redish as mbts are 135mm and I expect your bike is 120 mm. This is easy enough though as there are lots of spacers on the axle that you can remove.

I've got these (in fact the whole bloody thing) to shift if you don't go for the MTB conversion route: Rigida 26x 1/4 Super Chromix. I love Bluey, but sadly its got to go. With tyres and a spare inner tube.

cool, good and precise advices! thanks Tommy
I was thinking about checking if a mtb wheel can fit but I was quite unsure about the mesurements, about re-dishing and re-spacing I'm not worried about...
I'll try this way..
thanks Snowy but I just finished respraying the frame and cleaning all the other bits...

another thing... I got bored of my frame, It's one size too big for me, (58 instead of 56) it's nothing special but a good and solid machine, is an alu trackish frame (is a bit relaxed as geometry and can mount mudguards) with an alpina carbon fork. Do you know anybody who has the opposite problem and might want to swap frame? (maybe I have to open a new topic eh..)

Marco

Hi, hope you solve your problem... and wonder if you can help me to solve mine?
I need exactly the same wheel as was your problem, 26 X 1 1/4, five gears, free wheel and cant find this size anywhere. You mentioned hammering it and stuff, but if it still usable, please let me know...

In the past I also had the problem that I couldn't remove the freewheel.
I decided that the freewheel had to be trashed anyway.
So, I disassembled the freewheel (removed the cogs and freewheels'outer body, pawls, balls, etc) and clamped the inner freewheelbody in a vice.
Using the rim as a lever / fulcrum, I was able to separate the freewheel from the hub.

BTW, a new 5spd freewheel will cost just a few £. And a bit of grease during assembly will avoid a lot of headaches.