Will riding on knackered bearings ruin a hub?

rnath

I'm using an old Shimano WHR600 on my turbo and although it spins fine, the bearings are fairly gravelly. As it's a beater wheel I don't really want to throw good money after bad, but will I wreck the whole hub running it like this?

anto164

on shimano wheels, yes, as they use cup and cone bearings, i.e. bearings are loose and are held in a cup by a cone.

I'd recommend changing the bearings, and making sure that the old bearings haven't damaged the cups. Leaving them too long can degrade the bearing surface which is an integral part of the hubs function.

Basically just give the hub a service with a new set of bearings (Will cost a couple of quid for some correct sized BBs, and some grease).

tardyars

if it feels like it's running rough,chances are that the cones are pitted-you'll need to change these or even with new bb's you won't feel much improvement. Cones arent too expensive but it's worth taking them along to your lbs to make sure you get the right ones. Worth checking the cups that the cones and bb's rotate inside to make sue there's no wear on those as well-these are usually press fitted into the body of the hub,but can usually be replaced if required. it ptobably sounds a lot for a trainer wheel but I did something similar earlier this year for about £15- made a big difference to the wheel too!

dilemna

What do you view as a lot of money? If you continue to ride on the wheel whether on turbo or road or not the hub will become scrap as the not only will the cones and bearings become scored and pitted but the bearing surfaces of the hub itself. Best to strip and inspect. If the bearing surfaces of the hub and freewheel are fine then clean and refresh with new grease replacing cones and ball bearings where necessary.

I had a very noisy gravelly hub on a wheel used on a turbo that was just like yours and on stripping it found it needed a new free wheel as the bearing surface was knackered - scored, pitted and corroded. Had I done this earlier then made I would not have needed a new freewheel. However the non drive side was fine. Cone nut was a bit pitted though. Cleaned and re-asembled the whole hub with new free wheel, new cones and ball bearings and fresh grease. Now spins smoothly like a new hub.

rnath

Thanks chaps, sounds like I should have got onto this before now... feels like a bag of pebbles. Had always assumed it was cartridges in there but you're right, it's cup and cone. If it's anything beyond the cones probably best to just run it into the ground and replace. That'll teach me to put things off :roll:

geoff_ss

anto164 wrote:

on shimano wheels, yes, as they use cup and cone bearings, i.e. bearings are loose and are held in a cup by a cone.

I'd recommend changing the bearings, and making sure that the old bearings haven't damaged the cups. Leaving them too long can degrade the bearing surface which is an integral part of the hubs function.

Basically just give the hub a service with a new set of bearings (Will cost a couple of quid for some correct sized BBs, and some grease).

As it's quite easy to replace both cups and the cones the alloy part of the hub won't be damaged at all. However, the easy thing to do is to replace first the ball bearings and the cones if they show signs of wear. It's neither expensive nor difficult to do, though, I confess, it's always a bit of a faff to get the adjustment just so.

blackhands

Have you made sure that the cones haven't tightened up somehow ?

Herbsman

Strange - everything I've read suggests that hub bearing cups are generally not replaceable...

centimani

Herbsman wrote:

Strange - everything I've read suggests that hub bearing cups are generally not replaceable...

I always thought cups were not replaceable, but thats based on older cheap wheels. I'd be interested to know if you can indeed replace cups. I'd never heard of it.

desweller

centimani wrote:

Herbsman wrote:

Strange - everything I've read suggests that hub bearing cups are generally not replaceable...

I always thought cups were not replaceable, but thats based on older cheap wheels. I'd be interested to know if you can indeed replace cups. I'd never heard of it.

I've never done it, but as the hubs are aluminium alloy and the bearing races will be a hard engineering steel I should think it's possible to tap them out and press new ones in if you've got the kit and can get the parts.

Just like the old valve seat replacements we all used to do when unleaded fuel started to become popular!

Herbsman

They look replaceable, but I don't think they are. I remember trying to knock some damaged cups out of some BMX wheels, and they just broke. Park Tool's repair help site says they're generally permanent press-fitted and not replaceable. Besides, when was the last time you saw hub bearing cups in the 'hub spares' section of any mail order bike shop?

After riding the Formula hubs that came on my Pearson Touche I'd much rather use cartridge bearings. The actual bearings are smaller, there are fewer of them and as a result they need replacing more often, but they're much less hassle to deal with.

gilesjuk

Strip it down, clean all the ball bearings. Regrease and readjust.

This is one advantage of cup and cone, they can be adjusted to compensate for wear.

ride_whenever

IIRC it is just possible to do if you're very careful, however the only way to get spares is to buy a new hub...

This however works quite well if you're replacing the freehub body as they can be quite expensive for cheaper hubs.

Herbsman

gilesjuk wrote:

Strip it down, clean all the ball bearings. Regrease and readjust.

This is one advantage of cup and cone, they can be adjusted to compensate for wear.

The disadvantage is that if you're a lazy so and so who keeps putting things off, you eventually end up with pitted cups, and if it's too severe you end up having to replace your hub. Cartridge bearings will start wobbling and eventually break, forcing you to replace them, but at least the hub's still fine. Even if the bearing completely disintegrates and leaves you with the outer race stuck in the hub, you're still fine - just bang a 1" star fangled nut into it and bash it out from the other side.

I prefer the smoothness of cup and cone bearings and now that I'm no longer a cycle courier I can be bothered to service them every 3-6 months - in fact I actually enjoy doing bike maintenance nowadays. But the convenience of cartridge bearings is pretty good for people who don't.

desweller

Good quality cup and cone are also becoming relatively harder to find. Yes, I know Shimano are sticking to their guns on this, and the 105 hubs and above have a deservedly fine reputation, but there's not much alternative out there now. More reputable brands are cartridge than not.