Sachs freewheel numbering

[HansOberlander]

I have a set lovely almost unused Sachs 7000 hubs laced to Rigida DP18 rims for my 8 speed Shimano 600 build, but sadly the hubs are for freewheels. I have been researching on Sheldon's page and found out that the post 98 Sachs freewheels have a 4.8mm spacing as I need it. Now looking on the bay, I saw a lot of Sachs freewheels, all labeled LY and a number. So those numbers show the year of production? Does anyone know?

 

[originalshinkicker]

Sachs Aris freewheels came as either complete blocks or you could build them from a range of individual sprockets and spacers. Most workshops like ours would have the Sachs board on the wall and you would build blocks to customer spec. The LY is nothing to do with the name or year of the block, the LY was just the code for that sprockets position on the block - you also had sprockets such as EY, DY etc which took different positions on the body, but most people quote the name of these as LY as it is the end sprocket. The name is Sachs (Sachs Aris, Sachs Maillard whatever you want to call it).

Building these blocks was popular so you could spec your own range, or you could easily buy individual sprockets to replace worn sprockets

We did lots of 7sp and 8sp, they were great for Shimano Indexing if you had a threaded hub, they were popular on all types of threaded hubs, mountain and road. I used to ride a 7sp Sachs with Shimano 105 levers and rear derailleur on Record hubs

 

[Way2many]

I believe the Sachs freewheels came in 2 spacing options, one for Campagnolo and the other for Shimano.

I'm running 2, 8 speed blocks with my Mavic equipped bikes using the Mavic index levers, both work fine with black coloured plastic spacers.

I think the Mavic/Shimano spacing at the time was the same...but do check.

HTH.