Stuck lockring, any advice?

ktache wrote:

It might not help and do it, but this is the perfect excuse to add the Pedro's Vise Whip and the Abbey Crombie to your tool collection.

Cassette removal luxury.

Nice try, tempting me to buy more cycle tools, but my old chain whip has yet to let me down.

Luckily, I've never had a stuck lockring despite my heavy-handedness, though I've made the mistake of having one not tight enough which led to a slightly wobbly cassette and then a rear wheel locking up when the lockring got jammed against the frame. I'm puzzled as to how Rendel's lockring got so stuck.

And the decathlon thingy is a third of the price.

And the newer rohloff only needs a screwdriver to get the rear cog off. And then the cog can be flipped to get many more miles out of it...

If you've heaved a frame onto a vice to tackle a stuck b/b you do have to think which way do I turn it, to effect which direction, and which direction does this cup need to go? 

Good luck. If nothing else works, and you can source a replacement free hub body then I guess as a last resort you could file/grind/ dremel the lock ring off. But rugby mates and breaker bars sound a better solution.

please think about what happens if it does let go suddenly- don't want to patronize you but it is easy to get caught in the moment and forget.

Surely you mean Shimanic chants?

I mean, the summerhouse thing left by the previous people had pretty much rotted, I mean seriously, they'd put carpet tiles in and that was the end for the floor, so it seemed only sensible to get rid of it and  have a 10 x 6 ' man shed to replace it, ordering a workbench and and adding a bolted down engineering vice that's just what you do right, I mean it's not like I'm smarting from being defeated by a stuck b/ b and having to go to a vice owning mate's with it. 

Unless Superman installed it, this situation doesn't sound right, like increased brute force might not be the solution - it's only a bit of fairly flimsey alu.

Something is jammed - have you tried tickling the cogs, maybe gently with rubber screwdriver handle to see if there's anything that might click (back) into place to release it? I've got two chain-whips - it might benefit from a wiggle and a waggle anti-clockwise.  

EDIT: not Superman, but Bicycle Repair Man, of course. 

I was pondering what would cause it to lock up too. When you tuighten, you can feel the ridged surface click and with a torque wrench you get a notching effect. The natural movement of the wheel is more likely to loosen the fitting (a rider had his wheel jam after failing to torque his cassette and the lockring unwound then wedged against the frame).

So, random list of thoughts: a locked ring might suggest cross-thread or over-torque, with the slight question in my mind that the lock ring might be wrongly ridged - imagine an offset sawtooth where it will torque up to 40Nm against a mild slope but then would require signficant force to unlock against the steeper ridge. I suppose the other question is whether there was a metal incompatibility between lockring and freehub and there had been some corrosion causing the surface to lock - the different series of cassettes do seem to use different materials for the lockring.

Make sure you're doing the trick of holding the lockring tool on with a QR - otherwise one slip and the teeth are shreded.

I would not recommend using your mouth for extra grip - for that very reason. What are you on?

Rendel Harris wrote:

Thanks, it's soaking in  GT85 at the moment. Maybe I should go and buy a rubber mallet to give it a bit of gentle encouragement.

plus gas is your friend for unseizing seized threads

I hear WD is good for lubricating wing mirrors