Hub maintenance: Do people bother if so what/when do you do?

[wearwell]

shimano parallax hubs on my Dawes Galaxy have done about 20k km including heavy weight touring/camping, rough trails and are still running smoothly and perfectly. Have adjusted once or twice. First time to ease them off - I prefer there to be a very tiny click when wobbling the wheel. Too loose is much preferable to too tight. Few spots of oil now and then and that's it. Soon to be on to third set of rims however.

[gilesjuk]

It depends on whether the hubs have weather seals or not.

Even if there are seals, they're not really designed to keep the water out but the grease in.

Car hubs have very tight seals, but if bicycles had such tight seals it would be like pedalling with the brakes on.

[CREPELLO]

It depends on whether the hubs have weather seals or not.

Even if there are seals, they're not really designed to keep the water out but the grease in.

Car hubs have very tight seals, but if bicycles had such tight seals it would be like pedalling with the brakes on.

They're not waterproof, in an absolute sense but they do keep a fair amount of water out. A bike run through last winter on Shimano MTB hubs will still have serviceable hubs. Without the seals, I would expect extensive water ingress. As for tightness of the seals, Shimano MTB hubs are tighter than road hubs, but the seals have a very thin edge which performs the job pretty well.

[meic]

It depends on whether the hubs have weather seals or not.

Even if there are seals, they're not really designed to keep the water out but the grease in.

Car hubs have very tight seals, but if bicycles had such tight seals it would be like pedalling with the brakes on.

I quite clearly went on in the rest of the post to explain the actual real life effects of these weather seals, so whether they are weather seals or not is pretty academic.

As for them not being designed to keep the weather out, do you know something that Shimano dont?

Here are THEIR words on the Tiagra hubs.

A reliable front road hub
- Like those at the top-of-the-range, Tiagra road hubs feature labyrinth and contact seals to prevent the ingress of corrosion-causing dirt and water
- Silver anodised aluminium hub shell
- Comes complete with Q/R skewer
- Average weight is 146g (without skewer) 205g (wih skewer)

[pliptrot]

It's to the chagrin of the bicycle industry if they cannot produce hubs with adequate seals. My experience is that Shimano XT hubs with labyrinth selas and then an outer seal (the external rubber ring) will keep anything out. Anyone concur, or otherwise? The old Maillard 700 hubs had excellent labyrinth seals which worked very well, too. Campagnolo Record (1984 & 1997) and Croce d'Aune hubs had holes in the middle to inject grease, and just as well. All going strong still due to intemperate use of grease (my bearing lubrication policy is in accordance with Mick F's chain cleaining regime - clinical). But really, it's not rocket science so why aren't all hubs well sealed? The light rubbing (neoprene, I think) seals in cartridge bearings are adequate in keeping out light water, but are not durable and any abrasives (a bicycle getting dirty - surely not?) will destroy them, so additional shielding or sealing is needed. many hub designs have this.

[andrew_s]

I concur about the XT seals.
I regrease once when new to make sure there's a generous helping of grease, then every two years (or if I've been hub deep in water, which I try not to do on account of the front dynohub).

[fatboy]

Not sure if this is relevant but my fairly new Deore Hubs have rubber seals to stop the grease getting into the middle which might not help for when you want to push grease in from the middle out.

[niggle]

Just serviced the hubs on my Specialized Allez Sport, after ten months ownership and about 2500 miles of mostly dry rides (though I did get caught in a heavy downpour last month complete with two inches of standing water in places). The rear hub was fine but the front cones were pitted on both sides, one slight and one moderate, the cups looked fine and the ball bearings looked maybe a little dark/dull. The no-name hubs do have an o-ring round the cones which forms some sort of seal plus there was still a modest amount of grease in there, which was very sticky, and rather black in the front hub.

Fair play to the LBS that sold me the bike (Clive Mitchell cycles of Truro), who gave me new Shimano cones without quibbling, and new ball bearings after the mere raising of an eyebrow, but the Shimano ones are very slightly narrower so there is a tiny gap between them and the dust cover. I have been generous with the grease so that the gap is well filled, and will keep an eye on them from now on. Recently I have been using Finish Line Teflon grease for hubs and the like, as it is supposed to have passed some water resistance test, but is there anything better for water resistance?

[PJ520]

If you have external rubber seals on your hubs get replacements NOW. The ones that came with my Trek 520 disintegrated due to photodegredation (i.e they went hard and cracked and broke up) and it took me forever to get replacements. I went to bike shop after bike shop and they were all sure they had the right part or could get it. No luck whatsoever. Eventually I found the right part on the internet on a wholesaler's website. I had to go to an LBS and get him to order a set. About 2 weeks later they arrived, by which time I had replaced the wheel. The races were shot possibly due to riding with defective seals. They are the sort of part that gets changed every year so it behooves you to get spares.