Greasing a freehub

richardjallen
richardjallen Posts: 691
edited August 2007 in Workshop
I'm not sure of the names of all the parts but today I swapped my cassette and in the process took the splined part off the rear hub. This was really by accident. After a further accident the pawls were off :oops: I worked out how to get the pawls back on and everything was Ok but some of the grease was wiped off so I used some Weldite Lithium grease that I have to replace what got wiped off. I put it all back together and went out on a ride. Had no problems and I noticed the pawl is quieter.

My question is did I use the right type of grease? The Lithium grease is white while the factory grease looked clear with some dirt and what looked to be corrosion contamination. Is there a special type of grease for this or will the Weldite be Ok and did I do anything wrong?

EDIT - The wheels are Reynolds Alta Race and I think they used DT hubs in the version I have.

Comments

  • whyamihere
    whyamihere Posts: 7,716
    The lack of sound is perfectly normal when you put more grease in. The noise will return as the grease gets moved around.

    The lithium grease will be fine.
  • i-drive
    i-drive Posts: 527
    i allways use lithium grease for areas subjcted to low load weights but are going to get hammered by the weather.!
  • Kléber
    Kléber Posts: 6,842
    DT recommend lightly greasing the internals, it's usually fine. Mavic say use fine oil for their hubs but I've greased mine in the past and they've worked fine too.
  • naked_ollie
    naked_ollie Posts: 123
    Hey richardjallen, I'm about to replace the freehub body on my Alta Race - can you tell me how you got it off? Any special tools required?

    Cheers.
    --
    o~\o
    starterbikes.co.uk
    --
  • pliptrot
    pliptrot Posts: 582
    the old argument used to be that grease dried out, hardened and blocked the pawls. This is still possible, but modern lithium greases tend to be less prone to that. Grease is merely a way of holding oil in some benign substance for applications where the use of oil would see it leaking out.

    I've always ignored normal advice and stuffed everything- including pawls on freewheels and freehubs with lots of grease, and have normally used the cheapest automotive grease I could find. So far I've had very quiet freewheels and no detrimental effects.

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