gitaneusa.com :: View topic - what freewheel are you using on your old gitane?

mofunk

hello old bike lovers
i have a old 70's gitane and am in need of a freewheel hub?
what have you used to replace your old freewheels . 126mm spacing?
i took my bike in for new rims and it came out with a busted 5 speed freewheel . i was thinking of moving to a shimano 7 speed ?
has anyone had any luck with converting from 5 to 7 speed ?
thanks for any help

sandranian · Site Admin

Shimano 7 speed will likely not work because of your hub.

Kinst VonSterga

From experience, the Suntour Ultra 6 speed will work (almost the same width as a standard 5 speed), but normal 6 speed or ultra 7 may not as the chain may start scrapping the rear dropouts when shifting in or out of the lowest cog (ie. 13T, etc), using campy record hubs (not french thread) as my test bed.

verktyg

For starters, does your bike have a 126mm wide rear hub?

What happened, did the shop put on a used wheel or something?

What model Gitane do you have? Can you post some pictures?

Back in the 70s Gitanes came with 5 speed freewheels until maybe the end of the decade.

The entry level models like the Gran Sport came with "alpine" gearing: a 14-28T freewheel with 52-42, 52-40 or even sometimes 52-36 chainrings.

The sporting or competitive models came with 5 speed 14-24T freewheels and 52-42 chainrings.

If you have a French threaded hub, Normandy 5 speed metric thread freewheels are frequently listed on eBay.

If the hub has metric threads the threads are 34.7 mm x 1 mm (1.366" x 25.4 TPI).

British threads are 1.370" x 24 TPI (34.8 mm x 1.058 mm).

the newer ISO thread freewheels are 1.375" x 24 TPI (34.92 mm x 1.058 mm).

You can force fit a British or ISO thread freewheel onto a metric hub but it will ruin the threads and they have been known to spin off especially under a heavy load like honking up a hill.

Most Suntour Ultra 6 freewheels will have British thread and they don't fit every 5 speed bike without some tweeking. There are some uncommon narrow Maillard freewheels with metric threads. You have to troll Maillard on eBay.

Not all Suntour 7 speed freewheels will work with every 126mm wide hub and you usually have to do some tweeking there too.

mofunk

my gitane
http://www.gitaneusa.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1930

well today i found out that the drops are 120mm
the gitane went into LBS(owned by ex pro) with 5 speed hub working
great before the rims went on the hubs .they also "trashed" my cogs and my old rims without asking me. i got a falcon freewheel today (14-28 ) but i am looking for a dura ace 7400 (14-24) .the dura ace is 126mm and another LBS said that it would work fine .i have read on other forums that campy NR work best with 24T cog max. anyone have any luck with these freewheels?
i have friction bar end shifters and ride over hills .
my large chain ring is 48.is that normal
thanks for the help Very Happy

verktyg

Campagnolo Nuovo Record rear derailleurs were rated with a 26T maximum rear sprocket.

My all 1970 Super Corsa that I bought at the beginning of the year came with a 5 speed 13-31T Regina Oro freewheel. It also has 52-45T chainrings which I changed to 52-42T.

Before cleanup...

It shifts fine! I can use 9 of the 10 gear combos (not big-big sprockets).

I've even seen a 14-32T freewheel on an old Cinelli and it shifted fine too.

52T and later 53T chainrings were for serious racing. You could order 50 x 42 or 46 x 42 chainrings on the French TdFs. Stronglight sold cranksets with 50 x 38 chainrings as standards.

I live in the hills. When I put my wet weather beater bike together last winter, I used Stronglight 48 x 38 chainrings with a Suntour Ultra 6 13-32T narrow 6 speed freewheel.

I had to file quite a bit of metal off of the bottom inside of the seat stay for chain clearance. That's part of what I meant by "fiddling" to get it to work.

BTW, some of those Chinese and Taiwanese made freewheels are terrible!!! Mad

scozim

As others have said it all depends on the hub and threading and what your rear derailleur capacity is. The 60's Gitane I built up had a 14-28 Helicomatic freewheel and a Suntour V-GT long cage rear derailleur - worked perfectly fine.

My other two Gitanes have English threaded hubs and a 13-21 Shimano 6 spd on one and a Regine Super America Leggera 13-26 on the other.

Another project bike has a French threaded hub and a 5 spd Normandy Atom freewheel.

Personally, I would look for a donor wheelset with 126mm hubs and English threading just to give you more options. They seem to come up on Ebay frequently and, if you're in the States, on Craigslist a lot.

mofunk

has any one used defiant hubs?
are these english thread?

verktyg

"has any one used defiant hubs?
are these english thread?"

Never heard of them...

One other thing to consider, 5 speed hubs were "supposed" to be 120mm OLN (Over Lock Nut) width but they could range from 119mm to 122mm.

On the other hand, 6 speed hubs could range from 124mm, 125mm, 126mm, 127mm and 128mm OLN with! Shocked

When Shimano introduced their index shifting in the 80s, they laid down the law and 120mm, 126mm and 130mm became the de facto industry standard from then on.

A few weeks back I picked up an almost new 1983 bike (not a Gitane). It was set up for a 6 speed freewheel but the dropouts were 128mm wide form the factory.

The Campagnolo Nuovo Tipo rear hub was 124mm OLN from the factory!

I installed a Suntour Ultra 7 narrow 7 speed freewheel but there wasn't enough clearance between the end of the hub and the drop out which caused the chain to rub on the dropout.

I put 2mm of spacers on the freewheel side of the rear axle and that gave me the clearance. You will usually need to re-dish the rear wheel when you add spacers to the axle (another bit of fiddling that I mentioned before).

Here's some charts showing axle widths and "D" dimension clearance between the dropout and the hub shoulder where the freewheel seats.

For a 120mm OLN 5 speed hub it's 30mm and for a 126mm OLN hub it's 36mm.

Click to see an enlarged view...

A while back, I measured the widths of over 25 freewheels, 5sp, 6sp and 7sp regular and narrow width. NONE of them were made to any so called standard (more fiddling).

verktyg

When you take an old French bike into a shop and you see funny looks on the employee's faces, slowly back out the door and RUN AWAY! RUN AWAY!

I generally avoid dealling so called racer/experts in bike shops! Their raceur egos tend to get in the way of providing ME with what I WANT!

These old Gitane bikes may have been made before some of those Yahoos were even a gleam in their daddy's eye! Twisted Evil

For some stupid reason much of the US bike industry was stupefied about anything related to the metric world standard threading system. They forced the ISO to adopt a modified version of the obsolete BSC (British Standard Cycle) threads for bottom brackets, headsets and freewheels.

At the time most of the bikes being imported into the US were coming from Japan and Taiwan - both metric countries (except for bikes)!

If we would have said we want metric threads only, as exporting countries they would have quickly complied!

Oddly, almost all other fasteners on classic bikes have ISO standard metric threads! Confused

Try to find a shop with an old geezer who knows a little about French bikes! Wink

gmany

I picked up a TDF in poor condition a year ago.

I've got an unmarked Campy rear hub from fleabay (seller did not know the threading)

How can I determine the threading?

Additionally, I've got an Atom (14-16-20-24-2 Cool

and an unused Shimano "Fee wheel" (14-17-20-24-2 Cool

. Neither of these hubs is marked with thread size.

How can I determine the threading?

I have a freewheel tool for the Atom, but I'd like to set up a freewheel to the original 14-24.

verktyg

mofunk

thanks for all the info chas
will use the falcon until i find another freewheel .
there is a swap meet coming up soon in austin.maybe i will find something better .