What grease to use between rear cassette and hub?

[djnotts]

I've always smeared any old grease over the splines, but my splines have always been steel. Same on the locknut threads and they have never come loose.

Same here. Now I stop to think about it...........I shall continue so to do. Metal to metal where water is bound to be present? No brainer.

[Spinners]

I've never greased the splines before putting on a cassette and find that spraying the chain every so often gets enough lubrication on them. it's certainly greasy/oily enough when I go to take the cassette off!

[Gattonero]

I've never greased the splines before putting on a cassette and find that spraying the chain every so often gets enough lubrication on them. it's certainly greasy/oily enough when I go to take the cassette off!

Then you're certainly clogging up you chain in oil.
Lubrication has to be inside the rollers/links, not really outside and especially not dripping down in the hub

[Gattonero]

if the freehub body is aluminium, greasing the splines is likely to accelerate whatever tendency the cassette will have for 'biting' into the freehub body.

cheers

This is nonsense, the splines on a Shimano HG pattern work by opposing the -albeit shallow- vertical part of the spline, not really by friction in the bottom of the splines valleys.
Having fitted tens of thousands of cassettes I can say with 100% confidence that greasing the splines is not the cause of the "biting" of the sprockets inthe freehub: the HG spline pattern was never designed to be made out of alluminium, that is the cause of trouble (and yet it takes a lot of neglicence to have the sprockets to cause real damage and failure to the freehub)

[Gattonero]

Hi, busy converting to 1 X 11 and need advice. What grease to use between rear cassette and hub?

Is it a Sram XD body?
If so, yes please grease the threads and the smooth side.

But even in a Shimano HG pattern, whether is a steel or alloy freehub, it better to smear a film of grease to prevent rust/corrosion. Not that it would be a big deal but if you can do with peace of mind why not? Any grease would do.

[Brucey]

if the freehub body is aluminium, greasing the splines is likely to accelerate whatever tendency the cassette will have for 'biting' into the freehub body.

cheers

This is nonsense, the splines on a Shimano HG pattern work by opposing the -albeit shallow- vertical part of the spline, not really by friction in the bottom of the splines valleys.
Having fitted tens of thousands of cassettes I can say with 100% confidence that greasing the splines is not the cause of the "biting" of the sprockets inthe freehub: the HG spline pattern was never designed to be made out of alluminium, that is the cause of trouble (and yet it takes a lot of neglicence to have the sprockets to cause real damage and failure to the freehub)

You are right that the design is not meant to be made in aluminium (who ever said it was?) but you are quite wrong when you say that what I've said is 'nonsense'.

Duh.

[Gattonero]

It is, the splines are meant to contrast the torque with a 90º angle between freehub and cassette splines. Their flat valleys lay at 0º each other so they are not meant to carry torque, hence to say that "grease can make them slip/accelerate the movement of the sprockets" is pure nonsense. The sprockets go to a dead stop against the splines, that's where it ends. Grease or not it makes no difference.

[foxyrider]

if the freehub body is aluminium, greasing the splines is likely to accelerate whatever tendency the cassette will have for 'biting' into the freehub body.

cheers

This is nonsense, the splines on a Shimano HG pattern work by opposing the -albeit shallow- vertical part of the spline, not really by friction in the bottom of the splines valleys.
Having fitted tens of thousands of cassettes I can say with 100% confidence that greasing the splines is not the cause of the "biting" of the sprockets inthe freehub: the HG spline pattern was never designed to be made out of alluminium, that is the cause of trouble (and yet it takes a lot of neglicence to have the sprockets to cause real damage and failure to the freehub)

Wow, you must have fitted every cassette in the country (well except for mine 'cos I fitted those

[Brucey]

..... Grease or not it makes no difference.

Nope you are mistaken. If you think grease makes no difference there is a simple experiment you can do to demonstrate it; try working the sprockets (in a tightened cassette, within the backlash) against one another using a couple of chain whips. Grease the lockring before tightening, obviously.

Try it

a) dry

and then

b) with grease everywhere

In the latter case the sprockets move (within the backlash) more easily. It is the grease that gets between the sprockets and (in service) against the end faces that does the most damage.

The reason you don't grease these parts is the same reason all faces in a chainring assembly are assembled dry (apart from the threads in the chainring bolts of course). You need as much friction as possible and the easiest way to get that is with a dry assembly.

BTW there is a difference between parts that are assembled dry and then see a bit of lube vs parts that are assembled with lube from the start; the former usually have higher values of sticking friction, so are less likely to start moving around. However once they do start moving around you would find it hard to tell the difference.

cheers

[Spinners]

I've never greased the splines before putting on a cassette and find that spraying the chain every so often gets enough lubrication on them. it's certainly greasy/oily enough when I go to take the cassette off!

Then you're certainly clogging up you chain in oil.
Lubrication has to be inside the rollers/links, not really outside and especially not dripping down in the hub

No I'm not. I spray with WD40 and always wipe a WD40 soaked rag across the chain to clean it. Capillary action is enough to get it to the rollers links. There's no need to overthink these things.

[Gattonero]

Wow, you must have fitted every cassette in the country (well except for mine 'cos I fitted those

25yrs wrenching...

[Gattonero]

I've never greased the splines before putting on a cassette and find that spraying the chain every so often gets enough lubrication on them. it's certainly greasy/oily enough when I go to take the cassette off!

Then you're certainly clogging up you chain in oil.
Lubrication has to be inside the rollers/links, not really outside and especially not dripping down in the hub

No I'm not. I spray with WD40 and always wipe a WD40 soaked rag across the chain to clean it. Capillary action is enough to get it to the rollers links. There's no need to overthink these things.

It's not overthinking: the lubricant has to be inside the chain rollers, if you have lubricant reaching the freehub it simply means that it's oozing out in such quantity that is going down the sprockets in a sufficient quantity to cover them, and after this to cover the freehub.
In short: yes, it IS dripping.
A chain that is only lubricated enough will barely oil the teeth of the sprockets, nothing will go down the center of them, so the freehub won't get anything and be potentially exposed to rust or corrosion.

About "not overthinking" is the very simple gesture of smearing a little of grease over the freehub body every now and then: time and resources required are negligible.

[Gattonero]

º

..... Grease or not it makes no difference.

Nope you are mistaken. If you think grease makes no difference there is a simple experiment you can do to demonstrate it; try working the sprockets (in a tightened cassette, within the backlash) against one another using a couple of chain whips. Grease the lockring before tightening, obviously....

Are you putting into accounts that the sprockets will have a minimal play within the splines?

The example of the chainring bolts is irrelevant: the vast majority (if not all the chainring/chainset combinations) of chainrings do not have a dead-stop 90º spline facing the direction of torque; they rely on a threaded bushing (the female chainring bolt), the chainring does not actually get stopped by a spline on the arms of the spider.

[Brucey]

It is not an identical situation, I grant you, but it is comparable. We have all seen what happens if a chainring bolt is not kept tight enough, or grease is used in the clamped part of the joint. Both types of interface see a thrust vector that is not a perfect tangent (due to chordal action etc) and are reliant on friction and clamping pressure to help suppress movement.

BTW I think that (for various reasons) only rarely will it be a permanent state of affairs in the case of sprockets on a freehub body, but you can certainly slow down the onset of movement and 'biting' this way.

If you do the test I described you should find that there is a hierarchy of torque values (from high torque to low)

a) - clean (degreased) sprockets/freehub body, no grease applied except to lockring.
b) - uncleaned sprockets
c) - lightly lubricated sprockets
d) - greased sprockets
e) - used lubricated sprockets
f) - well used lubricated sprockets, in which the lockring has not been retorqued since first installation

cheers

[Gattonero]

Not only that is just theory that won't apply surely in all circumstances, for it's overall "generalization" it's distant from reality.
Truth is, the natural discrepancy in splines of freehub and sprocket fitting gives far more of a give than the difference that could (if ever) happen when a splined fitting is lubricated or not. I.e. you could have a guy that churns out 400w for long time and you can degrease the freehub and sprockets as much as you like but the opposing splines WILL give because is simple PSI on two 90º opposing faces that are too shallow for that combination of materials.
Therefore, to think that "greasing the freehub will accelerate its wear" is very much overthinking without putting into accounts all the variables that are in place.

Besides, as I said well before, by the time the freehub is actually damaged by the sprockets biting into the splines, all the other parts are certainly going to be fatigued: pawls pockets, pawl spring, fitting of the bearings and so on.
In a nutshell: biting of the sprockets in the freehub is hardly a problem, alluminium freehubs for Shimano HG spline pattern (but also for Campagnolo) have a relatively shorter life, after a given mileage they have to go in the bin.
That's where the story ends.