hubs and bearings

bother

I have a 3 year old Scott Genius MC-40. I haven't touched the hubs whilst I've owned it and whilst it hasn't been used particularly heavily, it has been in a few downpours and I suspect suffered as a result.

I noticed recently that the front wheel was sounding a bit rough and whilst still spinning reasonably smoothly it sounded a bit like grinding from the hub.

I've taken the hub apart and found that on one side, the cup, cone and bearings are all shiney and look fine.

On the other side thought, the bearings look very tarnished and not very healthy at all. In addition, the cone and cup have a black ring around them where the bearings would run and they don't feel particularly smooth.

I assume that I should replace the bearings on this side as a minimum, but what about the cone? I'm assuming that the cup (which is part of the hub) is not replaceable so I would need to get the entire hub replaced?

It's the first time I've done this sort of servicing myself so any other advice welcome!

Chunkers1980

Just grease up good and proper - ensure you've the correct amount of BBs each side and end.

See how smooth it is then. If it's still notchy then depending on your hubs and what's casuing the problem it may be cheaper to get a new hub and use that for spares.

bother

Thanks!

Just on the grease. My LBS sold me a pot of "lithium complex ep2 grease". It's strawberry coloured and pretty thick.

I actually bought and used it to refit a bottom bracket but assuming that I can use the same stuff on the wheel bearings?

Chunkers1980

That's the stuff.

What did you grease on your BB?

bother

Chunkers1980 wrote:

What did you grease on your BB?

The cup threads
The joint between the cups and the internal plastic tube
The crank spindle

As much to stop water ingress as for lubrication purposes.

S-M

I had the same thing recently, one side fine, the other side has bearings that looked a bit messy.

Replace the bearing balls (they are cheap as chips on fleabay) and try cleaning up the cup/cones with some scrunched up tin foil (worked for me!)

Regrease and put back together, you will probably get more bearing balls than you actually need, so after a week or to, remove them again after they have had a chance to run on the cleaned up cup/cones and swap them for some new ones with fresh grease.

This method worked fine for me.