Freewheeling

In mechanical or automotive engineering, a freewheel or overrunning clutch is a device in a transmission that disengages the driveshaft from the driven shaft when the driven shaft rotates faster than the driveshaft. An overdrive is sometimes mistakenly called a freewheel, but is otherwise unrelated.

The condition of a driven shaft spinning faster than its driveshaft exists in most bicycles when the rider holds his or her feet still, no longer pushing the pedals. In a fixed-gear bicycle, without a freewheel, the rear wheel would drive the pedals around.

An analogous condition exists in an automobile with a manual transmission going down hill or any situation where the driver takes his or her foot off the gas pedal, closing the throttle; the wheels want to drive the engine, possibly at a higher RPM. In a two-stroke engine this can be a catastrophic situation: as many two stroke engines depend on a fuel/oil mixture for lubrication, a shortage of fuel to the engine would result in a shortage of oil in the cylinders, and the pistons would seize after a very short time causing extensive engine damage. Saab used a freewheel system in their two-stroke models for this reason and maintained it in the Saab 96 V4 and early Saab 99 for better fuel efficiency.

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