Cycling UK Forum

I noticed that the back wheel on my tourer was not freewheeling very well. So I consulted the Park Tool site, and stripped down the hub. Not done this before so a bit of a learning curve, but it was interesting to see inside

Bit of cone wear on the non-drive side but the drive side was a mess! Cone badly worn (although not the whole way round - don't know if this means it was not set up right or not) and the grease a filthy black mess. Looked to me like a fair bit of oily water had got in.

Questions:

The bike has done 6,500 miles. Is this an acceptable hub life or have I been unlucky?

Have I been negligent in not stripping it down and re-greasing every couple of months? How often do people check hubs? eg every 1,000 miles...?

Do people bother maintaining hubs or just go for a new wheel? I see few places selling replacement cones. I could buy a replacement hub of the same model and swap in the innards (which would be cheaper than buying individual bits and give me a free skewer!). Is that what people do? Risk of course is that I might not get it set up properly as it seems a tricky job.

I've not checked the front hub yet (and it is still running smoothly. Do front hubs last longer, or not necessarily?

I presume you're talking about cup and cone (i.e free balls) rather than a cartridge system. Hubs often come with little and/or partially dried up grease straight from the factory, so if you've been running the hub without any maintenance it's little wonder it's in a state (not to imply this is your fault).

If it's just the cones and not the cups that're worn they should be easy enough to replace, cups are do-able but a faff. Maintaining cup and cone hubs is a nightmare, basically because you can fiddle around for hours adjusting the slack in the bearings, as some slack will be taken up by the quick release or nuts, thus you are usually too tight or too loose.

What I haven't yet done, but definitely intend to do, is drill a grease port into the middle of the hub. This way you can grease the bearings on a regular basis without all the faff of taking the wheel to bits. 531Colin suggested this several times on the forum. Would really make life much easier on cup and cone hubs.

It depends on whether the hubs have weather seals or not. If they are unsealed you have done very well to get 6,000 miles. If they do have rubber seals then 6,000 is about when I am starting of thinking to regrease my Tiagras.

If they are unsealed like Soras and my old RM50 hubs then I would either drill them out to accept a grease gun or run them to destruction and replace them, otherwise you will be stripping and regreasing all the time.

I rode a wet 100k Audax with Sora hubs and by the end of it the grease was totally soaked with water.

The running to destruction may not be as easy as you think, I regrease every 1000 miles and replace broken ball bearings but not cones or cups. The hubs just keep on going (rather noisily though). In the end it is the freehub that fails first.

The cost of a freehub is not much different from that of a whole hub for the cheaper end of the range.

The other questions.

In my experience front hubs give a lot less trouble. In fact none at all to date except I have cleaned them out because I know they have got water in them.

I prefer to rebuild the wheel on a new hub than to replace the hubs innards but that is personal preference.
Also I was upgrading to hubs with weather seals.
The life of the hubs is going to be similar to that of the rims so a whole wheel is often a good idea.
If you have space then save the old ones as spares or for fitting winter tyres on etc.

There are several threads on here referring to drilling hubs for greasing, I think this is the best one as it has some explanation and also a cautionary tale about putting too much grease in and clogging up the freewheel http://forum.ctc.org.uk/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=34933&hilit=drill
MODS this keeps coming up.... can we have it in too good etc?

2 other questions
rear generally has a much harder time than front due to weight distribution.
wear on one side of the cone is the side which was down (ie. loaded) when the water got in and rusted stuff, or whatever bad thing happened to the hub.

Thanks everyone, interesting.

The hubs are Shimano LX M580. They do have a rubber seal.

I live in a flat area, so there is plenty of life left in the rim (believe it or not I am still on the original rear brake blocks!), but I had a good look at the wheel and there is a bit of spoke deterioration that I wasn't aware of, so I think I will go for a complete new rear wheel. The front rim is nearing end of life (on my third pair of blocks there!) so, whatever the hub is like, I may as well get the set (Colin, there will probably be an order coming your way next week!).

I happened to have a spare rear wheel in the garage. It's a low end Shimano hub, for a hybrid, but I put it in to keep the bike on the road, and the difference was amazing - the lightest touch and it keeps on spinning for ages!

Thanks also for the link to the comments on drilling and greasing. It sounds like the sensible thing to do, so will do that with my new wheels.

You're always going to need to examine and service bike hubs. Once a year in the spring in a good time, just after winter when you get all the bad weather.

Get the wheel off, turn axle by hand and see if you can feel any roughness or tightness in the bearing. If so it's time to clean and regrease.

meic wrote:It depends on whether the hubs have weather seals or not. If they are unsealed you have done very well to get 6,000 miles. If they do have rubber seals then 6,000 is about when I am starting of thinking to regrease my Tiagras.

If they are unsealed like Soras and my old RM50 hubs then I would either drill them out to accept a grease gun or run them to destruction and replace them, otherwise you will be stripping and regreasing all the time.

I rode a wet 100k Audax with Sora hubs and by the end of it the grease was totally soaked with water.

The running to destruction may not be as easy as you think, I regrease every 1000 miles and replace broken ball bearings but not cones or cups. The hubs just keep on going (rather noisily though). In the end it is the freehub that fails first.

The cost of a freehub is not much different from that of a whole hub for the cheaper end of the range.

I left it too late!

8,600 miles on a Tiagra front hub ALL weathers and I heard a rumble. Water had got in on one side and done its evil work. The other side was fine but I did think that Shimano were rather miserly with the grease.
I wish I had stuck to the 6,000 that I suggested.

I left mine too late too. 3,000miles and rumbles from the back!

I strip and re-grease every 1,000 or so now.

Have a look at the shimano web site

http://www.shimanoservicecentre.co.uk/S ... H-M580.PDF

take the part no and get a couple of new cones ordered note they are handed.

I've just stripped mine down (Tiagra)and noticed that one side of the front was a touch worn so I'm ordering a new set. the rear had just a shade of red colouring in the grease, might have just caught them in time.

Malc

Shimano cones?....be afraid.......be very afraid..........http://wheelsmfg.com/tech/PDF/wheels_cone_chart.pdf

531colin wrote:Shimano cones?....be afraid.......be very afraid..........http://wheelsmfg.com/tech/PDF/wheels_cone_chart.pdf

Blimey! how many variations do you need. Give me old Campagnolo Record any day where you have a choice between front or rear

New Campag are the same front and rear now.

Mick F wrote:New Campag are the same front and rear now.

Even better, they just need to put the rear hub bearings in the right place now, although I suppose that the patent for that is owned by 'shh you know who'

Yeah, but have a look at Royce hubs. Completely different and the bearings are on the outside too, so it's not just a patent thing.