My Sturmey 3 speed is Clanking!

[andyh2]

My XRD 3 makes a sort of clanking noise, a bit when freewheeling and very pronounced when back pedaling. Only seems to happen in 3rd. Any ideas?

[GrahamNR17]

Could be a damaged pawl or broken pawl spring. Are you up for stripping it down to check?

[andyh2]

Well I did have a look at your video and thought that could be really useful someday. I didn't realise that this time someday was actually tomorrow (as in today) er I think you know what I mean. Looks like I'll have to dig out the 1/2 fingered gloves and give it a shot

[GrahamNR17]

Shame I haven't got round to the X-RD3 strip-down video yet

Download the tech doc at Sturmey Archer site for that hub, and it will tell you the extra bits you need to know about the pull-apart and rebuild

[rogerzilla]

I'm guessing it has the stamped metal shroud that trips out the extra set of driver pawls. These are notorious for rattling and you have to open up the hub and bend it a bit to shut it up. The older Sturmey hubs don't have the extra set of pawls and are therefore immune from this problem, although they also have a nasty "neutral" between normal and high gear - you pays your money etc.

[Mick F]

Are you sure your cable is correctly tensioned?
I used to get all sorts of noises in mine unless the cable was almost bar-taught in 1st gear.

[andyh2]

Thanks guys, I've rechecked the cable tension and have managed to adjust it so that i'm getting all 3 gears properly and it just clanks a little when back pedaling in 3rd instead of when freewheeling in 3rd. So that's some progress I'll see if a little more fine tuning will keep all 3 gears and do away with the clanking all together before delving inside.

[Smut Pedaller]

This is a bit of a thread revival but I had the exact same problem and found this thread through google and I thought it'd be useful for others in the future.

The loud clanking sound is the clutch bouncing up and down over the spinning pinions when freewheeling in high gear, the internals should be stationary when freewheeling but excessive grease between the ball ring and gear ring causes them to stick and thus spin the planet cage around in high gear.

Wiping off excessive grease between the two solves this problem, more info at my blog where I wrote about it in detail:
http://smutpedaller.blogspot.com/2012/0 ... oblem.html