tightening Bearings on rear wheel

[QUIST]

In order to tighten the bearings on my 7 speed touring shimano cassette does the cassette need to be removed or can I successfully adjust it to eradicate small amount of play from other side?

Thanks,

Odd gloves

[meic]

Yes, I think that you HAVE to adjust it from the other side as you cant get cone spanners on the cassette side cones with the axle in the hub.

All my rear wheel axles have the drive side cones clenched up tight and they stay unmoved for the life of the hub.

I assume that you are talking about about wheel bearing play, not play in the cassette itself.

[rjb]

Link here to park tool site. I particularly like the idea of replacing the wheel in the drop out to adjust the cones as shown in the photo's.
http://www.parktool.com/blog/repair-hel ... adjustment

[Trigger]

In order to tighten the bearings on my 7 speed touring shimano cassette does the cassette need to be removed or can I successfully adjust it to eradicate small amount of play from other side?

Thanks,

Odd gloves

Cassette play and wheel bearing play are two different problems, make sure it's one or the other before making any major alterations.

Cassettes don't have any bearings so there's no play to be adjusted out to begin with, if it is cassette play then I can only think that it's a worn free hub splines or free hub bearings (no experience of these failing though so I can't be sure they'd give the described problem).

Easiest way to find out is to remove the cassette, but it sounds like you're trying to avoid that.

[QUIST]

Just to be on the clear side it is to do with bearing not cassette play,

Thanks for all your replies,

Odd Gloves

[Brucey]

tip; when you adjust the bearings correctly , there should appear to be a little play in them when the wheel is out of the frame. When the QR is tightened, the play should just disappear. To check this on a bare wheel, you can clamp onto a pair of open-ended 10mm spanners as 'dummy dropouts' and check that the bearing adjustment is correct.

Nutted axles are easier; the bearing adjustment normally does not move when the tracknuts are tightened to hold the wheel in the frame.

Correct bearing adjustment as above can extend the service life of hub bearings (yes even quite inexpensive ones) by a factor of about five or more. Without it bearings can start to break up inside 1000 miles if they are too tight.

cheers