Help! Hub stripped of notches!

seajays

I thought my freehub was shot the other day as pedalling uphill, suddenly went into freewheel, spinning but not moving. Bought new freehub, fitted it, all seemed good.

Day later though and all of a sudden started slipping under pressure. Got worse in journey home so couldn't get uphill - had to walk. Couldn't believe new freehub had gone.

On stripping it all again, it seems the little notches in the hub itself that the freehub should lock into have all worn off (how!?) and so the whole freehub is slipping round. 🙁

So the question is, how to remedy most cost effectivly? Is it cheaper to get a whole replacement wheel, or to get a hub and get bikeshop to rebuild wheel? (In think a wheel build is beyond my capability!)

Advice appreciated.

Bike is Cannondale CAADX Tiagra, and the wheel is Madduc CX 3.0 disc with an FH-04 freehub, formula hub I think.

thecycleclinic

Have you gone to a shop. Without seeing this we are frankly guessing.

seajays

No - but the hub is definitely dead. It needs to be replaced as there are no longer notches in it to prevent the freehub slipping round. So I was just wondering if anyone had any idea on which is likelier to be more expensive - get a shop to get a new hub and rebuild the wheel - or just buy a whole new wheel? (Won't have time for a week at least to get to a shop!)

timothyw

Well, without knowing what your local shop will charge we are, as above, guessing.

But a competent builder would want to buy a new hub, new spokes and charge for their labour, basically only reusing the rim, which is from what you're describing unlikely to be anything special.

Spokes can be reused but this is not a good idea, they are more likely to fail sooner or later (and this depends on an identical or very similar hub being used).

So yeah, a new wheel is probably a better bet, assuming you can just buy the rear wheel.

photonic69

So you bought a new one of these and fitted it?

https://www.cannondalespares.com/Cannondale-FH04K-Freehub--KP415/product_detail/3-42995

If it failed in one day then it is faulty. The shop should replace it FoC. There are no serviceable parts in there as far as I'm aware. It's only a cheap £20 part. I don't know how you took it apart as I replaced the same on my son's bike earlier this year and it looked pretty sealed to me.

veronese68

timothyw said:

So yeah, a new wheel is probably a better bet, assuming you can just buy the rear wheel.

Agree with all of this post, but if mismatched wheels will annoy you it may be an idea to have your rim built onto a new hub. Alternatively, it's time for an upgrade and you will have an emergency spare front wheel.

seajays

photonic69 said:

So you bought a new one of these and fitted it?

https://www.cannondalespares.com/Cannondale-FH04K-Freehub--KP415/product_detail/3-42995

If it failed in one day then it is faulty. The shop should replace it FoC. There are no serviceable parts in there as far as I'm aware. It's only a cheap £20 part. I don't know how you took it apart as I replaced the same on my son's bike earlier this year and it looked pretty sealed to me.

Yes - but it's not the freehub that is at fault - it's the actual hub in the centre of the wheel. In the picture there, you see just below the thread, the collar is "notched" all the way round. Those notches align with notches on the hub itself, which locks it in place and stops the freehub body spinning round. Unfortunately the matching notches on the wheel hub have (somehow) all stripped/worn off - you can see the remains of them there!

N0bodyOfTheGoat

Depending on wheel design, worth checking the hub axle, my Hunts randomly went into freewheel instead of engaging under drive and discovered the whole freehub body was moving several mm from axle centre. Somehow, the fingetight axle ends had become loose.

photonic69

So you are saying the notches in the wheel hub into which the notches on the freehub body (highlighted) are worn?!

Can't see how that happened unless the freehub body had come loose and wore away the metal? In my experience in removing freehubs from stock factory wheels is that they are b'astard tight. To remove the one on my son's bike I needed a 3 ft long steel tube over my usual wrench.

In any case the wheel is fubar'ed and you need a new one. No point saving the Maddux wheel as they are not that good, tend to go out of true and are rather heavy.

seajays

photonic69 said:

So you are saying the notches in the wheel hub into which the notches on the freehub body (highlighted) are worn?!

Can't see how that happened unless the freehub body had come loose and wore away the metal? In my experience in removing freehubs from stock factory wheels is that they are b'astard tight. To remove the one on my son's bike I needed a 3 ft long steel tube over my usual wrench.

In any case the wheel is fubar'ed and you need a new one. No point saving the Maddux wheel as they are not that good, tend to go out of true and are rather heavy.

Yes exactly that! That's why I'm so surprised. When the original one went (going uphill), it went really suddenly - from no problems to suddenly no traction at all. When It took the wheel out and everything, the old freehub was loose! it was hanging out by about qurter of an inch, and had obviously been held in place by the pressure of the axle!!! Don't ask me how that had happened - I've never done anything with the original freehub other than service the ballbearings (and it wasn't hanging out last time I did that!)

seajays

Seriously considering epoxying the old freehub body back to the wheel hub as a temporary measure!

seajays

So I epoxyed the freehub into the hub, and at the moment it seems to be holding OK (make do and mend!) - not sure how long it will last, but we'll see... in case you didn't believe me about the stripped hub here's a photo... don't ask me how this happened as I haven't a clue!

Jack_Luke

seajays said:

So I epoxyed the freehub into the hub, and at the moment it seems to be holding OK (make do and mend!) - not sure how long it will last, but we'll see... in case you didn't believe me about the stripped hub here's a photo... don't ask me how this happened as I haven't a clue!

If you have epoxyed the freehub in place such that the cassette cannot freewheel you cannot ride the bike. You have in essence created a pseudo-fixie and will do untold damage to your drivetrain.

If it just the portion of the freehub that secures it to the hub, you should be fine.

I may be misunderstanding your post but proceed with caution!

slowbike

EEk - not sure I'd want to do any out of the saddle stuff with an epoxied freehub

The Rookie

Jack_Luke said:

If you have epoxyed the freehub in place such that the cassette cannot freewheel

Perhaps look at the photos provided.....

If you look at the photo of the freehub it's clear that the freewheel is internal to the freehub and on the wheel side the 'fixed' part engages in the hub. With the fixed part epoxied in the cassette holding part will still freewheel.

seajays

Just to be clear - the freehub is still very securely bolted in (not epoxyed in!). The - actually very small amount - of epoxy is just around where the notches are stripped to prevent it slipping, as even when bolted as tight as possible, without the notches when you went up hills it would start to slip and turn in the hub. With the epoxy it has stopped the slipping and I can get up hills no problem again. The freewheel mechanism itself is of course not epoxyed - that would be madness!