Stiff jockey wheel

joe1983

Hi, bought a second hand (but nearly new) XT rear mech and noticed the upper jockey wheel was noticably stiffer than the lower. I stripped it down to clean / check for probs and found the lower one runs freely as it is a sealed bearing unit and the upper one is on ceramic bushes. Is it normal for the upper wheel to be stiff (ie not free spinning) and would it make a noticable improvement to swap it out for a sealed bearing unit? Ta

nicklouse

the top one is a differet design to the bottom one.

find out why if is stiff. what is catching? what is bent?

johnsav

how do you know which one goes where?

joe1983

Cheers Nicklouse, but nothing seems to be bent or catching. When removed the wheel spins the same as when fitted, is it just normal for the bushings not to be as smooth as the bearings?

batch78

Ceramic bushings should be smooth, are they both Shimano products? I had some Tacx ones which failed quite quickly (probably due to my poor cleaning regime!).

how do you know which one goes where?

Thicker one at top, thinner one at bottom, some say upper and lower on if you look closely.

joe1983

yep both shimano, and both have had very little use as far as I can tell. Guess I'll just live with it until I get some shiny new ones!

johnnypipe85

I just stripped my sram x-9 and found the same thing! the lower one has some nice ball bearings in it, the top one is just a crappy piece of plastic with a hole in the middle!
why don't they put bearings on the top one, too?
What would you use as an upgrade?

Jon

drifter3

Whip em out an grease em.

hope i helped

mick

supersonic

Some top jocey wheels are designed to float side to side - therfore are a different designs and feel different.