SFB freewheels from RINGSPANN as a high-quality industrial replacement for automotive freewheels

Gone are the days of unbridled mass production of automotive cage freewheels that could also cover the needs of other industries. To ensure that the technological change in automotive transmission construction does not lead to procurement bottlenecks for manufacturers of industrial drive systems, RINGSPANN has developed the SFB cage freewheels. They are available to machine and plant manufacturers in all branches of industry as a high-quality equivalent to the former BWX and BWC freewheels from the automotive world.

Bad Homburg, June 2025. – „Some major automotive suppliers have now significantly reduced their freewheel range or even discontinued it altogether. This forces manufacturers in other industries to look for replacements for all those cage freewheels, whose procurement was considered secure for many years via automotive mass production. RINGSPANN reacted to this development at an early stage and now offers a high-quality substitute with the cage freewheels of its SFB series. For many manufacturers of hoists, conveyor systems, packaging machines, pumps, as well as textile and printing machines, it is currently proving to be the design equivalent for the new design or repair of their drive systems. "By making our SFB cage freewheels available in our one-stop shop, we are both responding to the increasing demand for alternative sources of supply in the field of free-range technology, and we are also underpinning our quality promise to go beyond the supply of replacement solutions to offer technical optimizations and innovative further developments, whose performance exceeds that of established designs," says Louis Geiger, Product Account Manager at RINGSPANN.

Versatile premium replacement

The cage freewheels of the SFB series were specially developed for use in industrial powertrains. They can be used as backstops, as well as overrunning clutch indexing freewheels, and prove to be a highly versatile solution for many different applications. Their typical areas of application include brake adjusters in commercial and rail vehicles, torque converter transmissions in hoists, forklifts and storage and retrieval machines, or the starters of motorcycles. In conveyor and packaging systems, they are installed as overtaking couplings or return valves. They are also used in the drive trains of pumps, safety winches of offshore and mobile cranes, roller drives of forging plants as well as in plastic winding machines, textile and paper processing machines – sometimes also in combination with industrial brakes from RINGSPANN. The cage freewheels of the SFB series from RINGSPANN are dimensionally identical to the BWX and BWC freewheels from the automotive industry, which are no longer available. These are freewheels with clamping pieces with a height of 8.33 mm, which are designed for installation between the customer's own inner and outer rings. Due to their high-quality design and their design for transmittable nominal torques of up to 2070 Nm, they are suitable not only for many standard industrial applications, but also for use in heavily loaded drive trains.

Quick 1:1 comparison

RINGSPANN currently offers the SFB freewheels as standard in 16 different sizes. In the event of repair and replacement, a table allows quick selection; the user can compare the twins with the former BWX types at a glance. Important to know for designers and product developers: the lateral guidance of the SFB cage freewheels can be achieved either by a shoulder on the outer ring or by retaining rings or washers attached to the outer ring. Freewheel specialist Louis Geiger also points out that "torque transmission can be significantly increased if necessary by several SFB cage freewheels arranged next to each other." 

In principle, the production of the cage freewheels of the SFB series is subject to the company’s own strict quality standards, which RINGSPANN guarantees at its headquarters in Bad Homburg. It also ensures the long-term availability that is an indispensable basis for maintaining the competitiveness of existing and future drive concepts in mechanical and plant engineering. ms