Cycling UK Forum

Hello

I am trying to save a pair of wheels and need to buy some new cones and ball bearings. The cups in the hub shell look good, at least better than I expected!

The current (nine on each side) ball bearings are 6.3mm in diametre (I assume 1/4 inch size) and the rod axle is 9mm in diametre and 170mm long.

I have looked on ebay and can see the sort of basic qualify item I need but only in 3/8 or 5/16 size.

Please can anyone advise if, for example, 5/16 size will be OK?

I made a bad purchase with the wheels and am trying to rectify the mistake for as few £££s as possible - this is simply new territory for me.

On a related note, I also need three of the rubber seals that fit over the lock nuts and butt up against a sing that holds the ball bearings in place - the ones i need have a diametre of 31.5mm on the wide end that butts against the ring. I'm not sure what this part is called or where to find them.

Thank you in advance for any help.

What make are the hubs?

Unfortunately, they are unbranded.

photos?

FWIW some axles have 9x1mm or M10x1mm threading but another common size is 3/8" x 26pti (which some (idiots?) refer to as 9.5mm x 26tpi). Obviously these are very close in size to one another and you need to be sure you are getting the right thing.

Past that the cones need to be right too (in shape, length, dustcap type) and whilst you can use different cones in some cases, you can't use any old thing. If the cone is the wrong length and/or has the wrong dustcap, this is both obvious and easy to overcome. If the curved part of the cone is wrong for you hub, it is generally neither obvious nor easy to fix. Furthermore the damage that can be caused is swift and irrecoverable.

FWIW even quite cheap hubs can work OK, but only if they are greased and set up well. As they come to you, neither thing will be likely. I service all new hubs before I put them to use, and I get very few failures or problems. If you don't do this (or try and mess it up, it is more subtle than it looks) the wheels can be scrap in as little as a few tens of miles.

cheers

If the cones are not too badly pitted you may be able to "dress" them up by mounting them in an electric drill and use emery paper. Wear gloves to do this. Best to use an old short length of axle or a suitable bolt to hold them. In the absence of a bolt then you need to improvise, wooden dowel possibly?

Just in case anyone is interested, this story has a happy ending.

After quite a bit of research, I found a Weldtite product that looked suitable. Contacted their technical team who gave the green light.

At a cost of £7.50, and 15 mins max of easy spannering, I now have a smooth running rear wheel.

The part number is 08332.

Super impressed by Sean at Weldtite who helped me out in record time. And very happy to have saved a set of wheels that would have been for the bin otherwise (I stripped the front hub and that just needed new bearings and grease - could use a cut down 08332 if I ever have to replace the cones).

Slimtim wrote:Just in case anyone is interested, this story has a happy ending.

After quite a bit of research, I found a Weldtite product that looked suitable. Contacted their technical team who gave the green light.

At a cost of £7.50, and 15 mins max of easy spannering, I now have a smooth running rear wheel.

The part number is 08332.

Super impressed by Sean at Weldtite who helped me out in record time. And very happy to have saved a set of wheels that would have been for the bin otherwise (I stripped the front hub and that just needed new bearings and grease - could use a cut down 08332 if I ever have to replace the cones).

Thanks for the info above .

IIRC front and rear cones are not interchangeable and the ball bearing size is different. I’d ask Weldrite for more info on size, my experience of front cones is that they are relatively long lived compared to rear wheel cones.

You asked about sealing in your first post. For many years I’ve made makeshift seals on wheel axles and bottom bracket axles using string and they have worked well for me. Wrap garden string around the shaft two or three times and tie the ends together with a reef knot, trim ends and push wraps up against sealing face. Headland V seals might be available on-line from eBay or rscomponents but why bother with a perfect solution when a cheap one does the job?

if a front hub takes 1/4" balls then it is odds on that it will accept some flavour of rear axle, shortened. However there are no guarantees that a pattern rear axle like a weldtite one will provide cones with the correct curvature. No-one can say if it will definitely be OK on the basis of the description 'unbranded hub'....

cheers

Just to fill in a couple of blanks. Both front and rear hubs use the same 9 X 1/4 inch bearings on each side. I would be pretty confident that a cut down rear axle will do the job at the front as the cones will have the same job as at the back.

Many thanks for the suggestion with regards to sealing. I will be visiting my LBS with the one example of the seal I am looking for tomorrow but may well revert to the string option if none are in their parts box.

Slimtim wrote:Just to fill in a couple of blanks. Both front and rear hubs use the same 9 X 1/4 inch bearings on each side. I would be pretty confident that a cut down rear axle will do the job at the front as the cones will have the same job as at the back....

my point, in case you missed it, is that

the curvature vs diameter of rear cones varies.

If the ones you have work OK, then great. If it is miles out it will be fairly obvious when you go to assemble the hub. But if the curvature is a slight mismatch the hub might seem to be OK but then go on to smash itself to pieces after a relatively short period of time. I have seen quite a few wheels that lasted only a short while longer after a pattern axle and cones were fitted; the damage arising normally scraps the hub, because it damages the cups.

cheers

I think you may be looking for a problem that doesn't exist.

I have replaced 1/4 inch ball bearings with 1/4 inch ball bearings and cones that are designed for 1/4 inch ball bearings with cones that are designed for 1/4 inch ball bearings. As the cups haven't changed there is effectively, no change. The angles cannot be different.

I would agree with your point if the cones, or balls were a different size from the originals. In that case, there will be a temporary period of joy followed by a longer period of regret.

Slimtim wrote:I think you may be looking for a problem that doesn't exist.

I have replaced 1/4 inch ball bearings with 1/4 inch ball bearings and cones that are designed for 1/4 inch ball bearings with cones that are designed for 1/4 inch ball bearings. As the cups haven't changed there is effectively, no change. The angles cannot be different.
.

sorry, you don't understand how hub bearings work. That there are the same number and size of balls is absolutely no guarantee that it is going to work.

I'll try to explain; the balls are only ever going to contact at one point on the cone, right? Similarly they will run in one place in the cup. If you draw tangent lines (on a longitudinal section view, i.e. coplanar with the axle) to the cup and the cone at these contact points, you should end up with a pair of parallel lines. However if the cone is different in any way from the intended cone for that hub, you won't. Quite small differences in diameter vs tangent angle are quite enough to make an utter balls of it; the balls scuff and it is double-bad for the bearing.

A couple of little anecdotes;

1) BITD campagnolo made only two types of hub innards. It was not at all uncommon for folk to fit the wrong cones in the wrong hubs, because they had the same threading and they 'looked the same' (they didn't, not quite). However the result was always the same; the hub smashed itself to bits.

2) Recently I had a conversation with an LBS owner of some 40 years standing. He said to me 'front hubs don't seem very good these days' and cited multiple instances of front hub failure. Turned out he'd routinely been fitting solid axles to QR hubs so that he could more easily fit a basket stand. He'd been doing this for years, but more recently there were more variations in the exact design of front hubs. They all used 3/16" balls but the intended contact angles were different between the solid axles he was using and many of the hubs. Those hubs 'seemed OK' when the spindle was installed but they all failed in short order. I advised him to use a solid axle with the same threading and to re-use the original cones, not the ones that came with the axle. No more failures.

If you want to read more (including a practical test to ensure compatibility between cups and cones) see this thread.

http://forum.ctc.org.uk/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=59209&p=500306&hilit=sharpie#p500306

I see quite a lot of broken hubs which have (recently) had aftermarket axles and cones fitted. They certainly don't always work.

cheers

For information I copy to this thread some comments made by Brucey in the other one:

To tell if your cones (old or new) are going to work, here's what to do; degrease everything. Using a black marker pen (a sharpie or similar), coat the cup and cone black on the running surfaces. Wait a couple of minutes for the pen marks to dry off. Next, reassemble the hub with genuine Campy (used Campy is Ok if they are not pitted) or new grade A or better (best available tolerance, not cheapo header card ones from the LBS) balls loose and no lube at all (this can be fiddly..). Dont bother with the locknuts. Now just nip the cones up using slight finger pressure and spin the hub. A good hub will run freely with clearance taken up fully and the cones under slight pressure. Further pressure through tightening of the cones using fingers only will slow the hub but it won't make any really foul noises and the running friction will increase but be more or less consistent. The noise you should hear if all is well (on a bare hub, not a built up wheel) is a bit like the sound you get if you roll a single ball bearing around in the bottom of a tin can. If the angles are all wrong the hub may seize instantly or have very variable friction as you finger tighten the cones. It will probably make a variety of exciting squealing and/or crunching sounds too. Try not to turn the hub with the bearings too loose during this test. To be 100% sure of the result, now take the hub apart and look at the bearings.

Good things to see are; a narrow (~0.5 wide) line worn through the black on both cup and cone, and the tangent angle to the mark on both the cup and cone profile should be the same. The contact (or thrust) line, which is at 90 degrees to the tangent, can be anywhere from 45 degrees to about 60 degrees from the axle centreline depending on the hub design. Campy rears are usually nearer the 60 degree angle.

Bad things to see are bad angles and/or a wide line (~1.0mm or more) in the black marking. Usually both go hand in hand. The wide line means the balls have been scuffing and this is fatal to the hub. It doesn't matter how good it feels when the grease is in, if it is no good dry, as per this test, it'll wear like blazes later, grease or not.

For what it’s worth I’ve nearly always found it somewhat difficult to buy the correct cones for anything but hubs that are both current and expensive - that’s a bit of a problem if, like me, you don’t have the dosh to buy expensive components. The local bike shop and on-line sources are always happy to sell you something but whether it’s the correct something is to some large extent ‘pot luck’. When I used a derailleur equipped bike I used (as an investment) top quality ball bearings, plenty of grease and pains taking adjustment of the cones and that seems to have got me bye, but if the bearing didn’t feel right then I tried different cones until something worked. That suck it and see arrangement worked for me but I was probably lucky and in times past I was happy to spend hours faffing around, did a lot of miles too though. I’m glad to have read Brucey’s comments above ‘cause now I have, if needed, some better guide to establish what’s likely to last.

All the above fuss and bother provides another reminder of why I like hub gears more than derailleur ones, IME hubs are much more fit and forget.