Circlip hassle

[Milzy]

I need to remove a circlip in freehub body without any snap pliers.
It’s too troubling with screwdrivers & long nose pliers. Any tips?
Thought of destroying it & buying a new one but £3.50 and waiting for delivery.

 

[Darius_Jedburgh]

Buy some circlip pliers. Always useful.

 

[gbb]

As a maintenance engineer, tbf I have several pairs of circles pliers ....but there are no easy ways without them IME.
There will be ways, a steel scribe perhaps, something strong , if you can lift one side and get something under the circlip and work your way round...its possible, but not easy.
Then you have to get it back in.
Also depends on the quality or springiness of the circlip....some are swines WITH the proper tools.

 

[gbb]

Actually, looking closely at the photo, you can see there is a gap between the circlip and the body, just behind the end parts. A small screwdriver in there, lever it away from the body, wedge with another screwdriver and work around the circumference. Do-able perhaps.

 

[gbb]

Arrows show the gaps...

 

[Cycleops]

Mug a schoolboy coming home from school and raid his maths set for some dividers

 

[Milzy]

It’s extremely strong. I will probably buy a pair for life. For now I must see one of the happy engineers at work.
I imagine it will press back in without the special pliers.

 

[Milzy]

https://simplybearings.co.uk/shop/p...SSm2trrSaX7f9VQd03b_OBUaR-E3SqXgaAl4dEALw_wcB

 

[Darius_Jedburgh]

Or better still these allow internal and external with removal and replacing facility.

https://www.toolstation.com/combina...MVU8IFwtdMJvy-SUf9BSOI5_G2twOZsAaApgpEALw_wcB

 

[bikingdad90]

Would a quick release chain link tool do the trick?

 

[snorri]

Or better still these allow internal and external with removal and replacing facility.

Money well spent even supposing you only use them once!

 

[Milzy]

Would a quick release chain link tool do the trick?

I tried that. Looked in a kitchen drawer and found a Rocktrail lock knife. It popped it out amazingly after many screw drivers failed.
Hub finally finished after putting the job off for weeks.

 

[slowmotion]

Buy some circlip pliers. Always useful.

I bought a set of four on ebay for about eight quid. Screwfix do a kit with four different jaws for under a fiver. It's far better than faffing about with small screwdrivers etc , and then watching the clip flying off through the air to somewhere where you can't find it.

 

[rogerzilla]

They are really cheap. You need tiny ones to overhaul Dura-Ace pedals, which use a circlip to retain the inboard ball race. I think l paid about £4 for a set of four mini-circlip pliers and they are perfect.