'Mighty' branded freehub

[jimlews]

Some years ago I bought a 'Mighty' branded freehub, I think from SJS.

If memory serves, it cost about £ 5.00 - it looks like a Shimano cop-off. Takes a nine speed cassette.

It's been doing service on a old ridgid Saracen Sahara MTB, mostly light (summer) road use for aprox 5 years, so paid for itself.

But does anyone have any long term or high mileage experience of these; are they any good for loaded touring,for instance?

and are they durable, are they easy to service?

Any wisdom/opinions/caveates appreciated.

[mattsccm]

Sugino used to use the name Mighty. I am damn sure that its also popped up on my radar in another place this week.

[Brucey]

there are lots of off-brand freehubs out there. Most of them are used in OEM hubs that are supplied with a variety of brands of bike, so if you buy a trek, Bontrager, felt, specialized, giant, cube etc branded freehub you are really getting a KT, joytech, quando type freehub. Most of them are OK. Some have three pawls inside which ought to make them stronger than many shimano ones. Some have better seals than the cheaper shimano models. Most are capable of giving good service, but all will die unless they are at least adequately lubricated.

The problems come when you need to buy spare parts. There are presently about a hundred shimano freehub body part numbers and about the same number of aftermarket ones. Identifying the correct freehub body for your (off brand) hub may be incredibly difficult.

Most people neglect cheap freehubs and then maybe make a half-hearted effort to find a new freehub body or other spare parts before ditching them. If you keep on top of maintenance you probably won't end up in that unhappy state. If you do need to disassemble such freehub bodies they are no more easy or difficult to overhaul than shimano ones.

As an experiment I set up some wheels for a chum to use on his commute. They had originally been supplied with a midrange Giant road bike, and had some taiwanese hubs in; not the very cheapest ones, but ones with ground surfaces on the cones. As well as stress-relieving the wheels, I reshimmed the freehub body, lubricated it with a semi-fluid grease, and used decent grease and careful adjsutment on the hub bearings. Those hubs did 17000 miles of commuting in all weathers without being touched. They were looked at and regreased anyway (which wasn't really necessary, but by this time we were curious) and they have now done in the region of 25000 miles, again not having needed any real adjustment. I have seen the same hubs (badly greased, no lube in the freehub body, badly adjusted etc) last just one winter.

So you have an answer; mostly off-brand freehubs are OK and will give good service provided they are well maintained.

cheers

[jimlews]

Thanks to all who replied. All very encouraging. I'll have to grasp the nettle and strip it down and relube. Nothing to suggest that there is anything wrong at this stage.

Brucey, the semi fluid grease you mention; would that be the stuff for Land Rover swivel hubs?

[Brucey]

the land rover grease is about as good as you can get if you want to buy some that is readily available.

BTW it is best to be proactive with maintenance. If you wait until there is an obvious problem, the thing will probably get damaged before it gets maintained.

cheers