Cassette won't come off

So I blew my freewheel this morning on a ride. I removed the Cassette lock ring to check out the freewheel and make sure I replace it with an appropriate one and the first two gears came off no problem as expected, but the rest of the cassette won’t come off. There is play, it wiggles in and out (or on and off) it just won’t slide off. The splines of the freewheel look seated correctly in the cassette too as far as I can see. I watched a YouTube video that said to tap the cassette a few times with your wrench if it doesn’t just slip off but didn’t have any luck.

Anyone have any experience with a similar issue? Thought id’ ask before I stick a screwdriver in there and try pry it off. My luck I’ll probably cause more damage.
The Cassette is a Sunrace CSMS2.

Sometimes the cassette will dig into the freehub body and will take more force to get them off.

2 Likes

Give it a gentle whack from behind with a hammer and block of wood. Keep it as close to the hub as you can. It’ll go.

1 Like

Yeah I read that using two chain whips you can try to hold the smallest ring of the cassette with one then turn the outer rings counter-clockwise to try and un-jam it if the cogs have cut into the freehub body. Don’t have two (cause why would you) but might try to rig something up.

2 Likes

Definitely going to try that. Thanks for the tip.

This is the way.

Tried it with no luck yet. Maybe I’m not hitting it hard enough. It looks like the free hub body might be separating too. Which might not be a bad thing - at least it would get the whole thing off the hub. I’ll try spraying some more WD-40 down in-between the cassette and free hub body and trying again.

I usually use a socket the same size as the free hub body and a shitty extension or block of wood, and really hit it or give it a lot of taps.

I finally got it off.
Just took a lot of patience - something I lacked in my first attempt. I also was using a rubber mallet cause that’s what I have in my bike tool box.

I put the wheel down on a wood block, tapped the right side of the cassette from behind a few times using a piece of wood and a claw hammer, then switched and gave the left side a few taps and so on.

It took half a dozen cycles before I started to see results, but I kept at it and the more I worked one side then the other the faster it moved off the free hub body. Took 3 to 4 minutes total.

I can’t say I’ve ever encountered this issue before. Thanks for the advice folks!

Now the search begins for a replacement freehub. :confounded:

4 Likes

What kind of hubs is it?

It’s a Shimano FH-MT400-B (Boost 148mm). Nothin’ special it’s the stock hub on my Growler.

I’ve definitely taken a file to my cassette to smooth some of the bite marks in the freehub body if I was just taking things apart for maintenance and not replacing the hub. Switched to the steel freehub for my Pro4 and it’s made a huge difference vs the normal aluminum body.