Pulled apart my rear Spesh MTB hub today . . .

[yashicamat]

. . . after deciding it felt a bit rough (and the freehub had a bit of play). As the hub had been replaced with a Deore one (the wheel had corroded spoke nipples, so was being rebuilt anyway - seemed a logical time to put a better hub in there), I decided this was the ideal opportunity to learn how to strip and rebuild a bicycle hub.

So, following the excellent guide on steveukmtb I removed the non-drive side locking nut and eased the cone out to be confronted by a mass of (clean) blue grease. I cleaned this all up and this is what I found;

Nice and clean, spotless in fact. A slight wear line on the cone but nothing that is a problem. I was a little annoyed at this point, thinking that I've paid for a new hub when this one appears fine. Well, as I started to slide the axle out, I noticed some non-blue 'grease' starting to ooze out of the drive side of the hub. After some cleaning and degreasing, we have this rather sorry state of affairs (and this is cleaned up fully!);

That is a pretty knackered bearing! The design of the seal on this hub is diabolical - I'm really not surprised that water ingress has occurred (although I will be regularly cleaning out the hubs on my MTB in future when it's getting into wet/muddy conditions a lot).

A question to finish this off please; this hub is going to be binned, it was just an experiment to dismantle it, but for future reference I noticed that there was a lot of grease on the axle and the inside of the hub itself between the two bearing races - should this be cleaned out too when doing a hub service (I'm guessing this requires lots of cotton wool buds!)? If so, would the best method be to remove the freehub (I believe just a 10mm allen key?) then is the remaining part of the hub safe to douse in degreaser (I've been using petrol), or are there other parts inside the middle of the hub that shouldn't be soaked in DG?

Cheers. Nice to learn something new isn't it?

 

[Cubist]

Unless that inner grease is badly contaminated (ie brown or mayonnaise coloured) then a quick wipe should do it. I push a strip of rag though it with a barbecue skewer! Degreaser is not really necessary I don't think.

Keep an eye on the seals on your Deore as well by the way. I had one that was dreadful and suffered water ingress. If nothing else it teaches you to keep the hose off them!!!!

 

[yashicamat]

Unless that inner grease is badly contaminated (ie brown or mayonnaise coloured) then a quick wipe should do it. I push a strip of rag though it with a barbecue skewer! Degreaser is not really necessary I don't think.

Keep an eye on the seals on your Deore as well by the way. I had one that was dreadful and suffered water ingress. If nothing else it teaches you to keep the hose off them!!!!

The grease on that mucky end of the hub was like curry sauce! A brown, gloopy mess and it was also a lot less viscous than the clean grease at the other end of the hub. I had used cotten wool buds, dipped in a little petrol, to clean that dirty cup before the photo - that was corrosion on the surface of the cup! Well and truly knackered!

Thanks for the heads-up about the Deore hub; I will be keeping a close eye on my MTB hubs and yeah, while I was already careful with the hose (always have the pressure turned right down etc. and no powerful narrow jets either), it will make me be even more careful in future!