Shimano factory wheel rear hub spares

[willcee]

A friend has just left me a shimano rear wheel from i think Ultegra quality factory wheels WH-R250 which is grumbling after a long lay off and never any previous issues.. had a quick search and haven't had any success so is there a rebuild kit or is it part numbers axle seals cones [plus brgs] and hub inner cups if they are indeed removable.. i haven't yet dismantled but would rather have all to hand before the off... and the guy loves them....any one out there? will

[tim_f]

You need to go to http://si.shimano.com/#/

and search for your product code you might want this page http://si.shimano.com/pdfs/ev/EV-WH-R550-650C-F-2574.pdf

Tim

[NATURAL ANKLING]

Hi,
I would have a gander at the balls, possible pitting / rust through standing, cones or and cups and you might be better replacing the hub.
Just rumbling is not always a bad thing if you have grease in there it wont fall apart tomorrow, but needs a look inside.
Balls only will be cheap and even with some damage to the other parts replacing the balls will give it some new life.

[Brucey]

there are also WH-RS30 and WH-RS80 models, the latter is described as 'ultegra'.

http://cycle.shimano-eu.com/media/techdocs/content/cycle/EV/bikecomponents/WH/EV-WH-RS80-C24-CL-R-2894A_v1_m56577569830698522.pdf

rumbling after a layup usually afflicts the freehub bearings worse than the hub bearings. IIRC the freehub body has seals on it, but if it only has a little shimano grease inside and the seals leak even slightly, the hub will start to go rusty and then rumbly.

You can replace every part of the bearings apart from the LH cup. However Madison, as well as hiking all their prices up recently have also failed to keep every freehub body in stock that they ought to, so it isn't guaranteed that you will be able to get one.

cheers

[Roadster]

The grease in the hub bearings may simply have dried out. It will sound horrible when spun in the frame but, provided the wheel has been stored in dry conditions and not ridden at all, an overhaul may be all that's required.

[willcee]

Update..I had everything out sat morning and low and behold probably will get away with new balls and a cone on the drive side.. the actual model is RS50[ when I had the dirt washed off] and have been in contact with Geo Hall cycles via the net to see if they can get me some cones, have decent balls the size required.. the freehub was in very good order notwithstanding, popped the seals and the brgs are clean and lubed so packed more in and put seal back, the bearing cup in the freehub washed, cleaned with rotary wire brush and no brindling evident.. water has been the culprit on the driveside, black bearings & brown horrid lube... the left was immaculate , nice clean soft grease in evidence, and way more than shimano would ever have put in .. will

[gxaustin]

SJS are good for these kinds of thing

[willcee]

Geo Hall have 2 cones en route.. 16 quid ish inc post.. they aren't the same.. one is almost 2 times price of the other.. Never tried SJS, any dealings i ever had i found them just taking it all.. price wise.. will

[willcee]

sat 17TH.. post brought the new cones complete with lock nuts seals etc .. after installing all is as it should be, i should add that even though George Hall cycles said Madison had quoted mid July delivery to them they got back mid last week and had them back in stock,.posted friday noon with me 9 am sat.. service or what!! will

[blackbike]

there are also WH-RS30 and WH-RS80 models, the latter is described as 'ultegra'.

http://cycle.shimano-eu.com/media/techdocs/content/cycle/EV/bikecomponents/WH/EV-WH-RS80-C24-CL-R-2894A_v1_m56577569830698522.pdf

rumbling after a layup usually afflicts the freehub bearings worse than the hub bearings. IIRC the freehub body has seals on it, but if it only has a little shimano grease inside and the seals leak even slightly, the hub will start to go rusty and then rumbly.

You can replace every part of the bearings apart from the LH cup. However Madison, as well as hiking all their prices up recently have also failed to keep every freehub body in stock that they ought to, so it isn't guaranteed that you will be able to get one.

cheers

Freehubs can often be brought back to life by putting them in an oil bath for a few days. I use motor engine oil for this and it cures rumbling for a year or two.

[willcee]

A month or more on the owner was still grumbling about his also grumbling freehub, tried to buy one in the UK, they all advertised them, but none in stock and next Madison shipment mid Nov!!!! with the part number to hand i finally traced one in Germany.. new 10 grade balls purchased, waited 10 days on delivery as they sent it to Southern Ireland, not N.I. which is in UK, rebuilt it, fitted wheel, delivered machine, arrived back today at 11.30 to find it resting against my workshop wall, on examination the axle was turning in the frame, hub locked tight, stripped again examined, found the centre sleeve holding the freehub slack and shards of the end of said sleeve inside the driveside cup, luckily no damage apart from axle threads on drive side and the sleeve that affixes the new freehub.. had a look in my shimano spares found a sleeve which would fit and an axle which i trimmed to size.. rebuilt it ,tested on stand running sweetly again. rang the owner, he had covered 90 miles on sunday past, heard a crack about 4 miles from home examined bike couldn't see what was up wheel loosened again and he rode home!!!Now ask me why i like Mavic.. will

[Brucey]

It is rotten luck that you have had problems, but to put it in context, I have seen three shimano freehub bolts that failed to date. That is from many, many hundreds I have overhauled (if not thousands of others where I would have been alerted to the failure) of freehubs over a period of 30+ years. They all failed in the same way, which was that the bolt started to pull through the bore of the freehub body. Of those, one I know for sure was overtightened, using a 10mm allen key rather than a spline bit. The others look to have failed in the same way but I cannot prove it.

Shimano have revised the bolt head design for some of their hubs so that the bolt head is stronger and is less likely to pull through. However the original design was, I am sure, intended to protect the screw thread in the hubshell from stripping in the event of overtightening.

A 10mm allen key is OK in most cases but the correct spline bit is a better idea; this is inserted so that the top of the bolt is supported by the shank of the tool. You know when the bolt head is starting to yield because the tool becomes a more snug fit (less wobbly) as the bolt is tightened. It is very easy to overdo the bolt tightening (e.g. if you are not using a torque wrench) and this can leave you with a hollow bolt that will pick up on the axle in use and maybe cause trouble.

Later models of freehub use a larger axle and a larger bolt but similar concerns exist with those.

There are other ways the freehub body fitting can go wrong; that there is some grot in the interface to the hubshell, and/or the freehub body and/or washer (if fitted) is misplaced or badly made. I have seen two or three washers that had burrs on such that they prevented the freehub body from mounting square and one freehub body centre that was machined badly and could not be mounted without swash. The washer was an easy fix; just deburr the washer properly.

The consequences of a misplaced washer (easily done by other folk it seems) are less easy to sort out; even once the washer is replaced, the hubshell may be damaged enough that the freehub won't mount true. It is (IME) a very bad idea to use grease between the hub and the freehub body; this isn't squeezed out immediately when the bolt is tightened, and the result is that the bolt might as well not have been tightened fully; the grease squeezes out of the joint over time and the tension in the bolt is lost.

Any cause of the freehub body swashing (even slightly) will greatly increase the chances of the axle picking up on the hollow bolt. If something goes wrong with the hub bearings, again the axle may pick up the bolt. If the hub bearings have failed, it is almost certain that something is wrong with the assembly process, eg locknut and cone not tight enough against one another, wrong adjustment, wrong size/number of ball bearings, ball bearing(s) misplaced, some problem with the freehub body fitting, that kind of thing.

It is not always 100% clear what the sequence of events was, (let alone causes were) after the event, but IME shimano freehubs are incredibly reliable provided they used for the purpose intended and are assembled correctly.

FWIW I've ended up rebuilding freehub bodies of all makes because spares are not available at a reasonable cost or (often) at all. Even if avaiable, by the time the correct freehub body has been identified and sourced, I could have rebuilt the old one and been on to something else. BTW if the freehub body is rebuilt in situ, it sidesteps any potential issues with the fitment of the freehub body to the hubshell.

BTW I've said this before but with a shimano-style freehub it isn't that important if the freehub bearings are perfectly smooth and quiet; the reason is that in this design (and unlike every other bearing on a bike) the bearing is not moving when under load, and is under no real load when it is moving. Given a choice between a play-free (but slightly noisy) freehub bearing and a quieter bearing with some free play, I'd choose the first one every time.

cheers

[NATURAL ANKLING]

Hi,
One other thing that I have noticed (pretty obvious really) that if you remove the freehub from body, maybe even if you replace it in the same orientation (freehub mounts in several different positions by virtue of number of splines), because the axel cup sits on the freehub, this means that you will have to re-true the wheel after replacing the freehub.
Also IME is that re-shimming or just removing and retightening the cup to access the freehub bearings means that you might also have to retrue wheel.

This is because the axel DS bearing is mounted (aligned to be more precise) on several parts that can be assembled, and will always probably end up in different orientations, so the build up of concentricity and or flatness of parts (exist on all manufactured parts) will affect its alignment.

Axel, DS - cone - cup (integral with outer freehub cone) freehub centre body thread - freehub splines - hub body splines.

So previous recommendation of Not removing the freehub to service bearings, from the body is preferred.