Slipping chain? hub? freewheel?

[fossyant]

Is it still skipping.....it's your freehub..FFS !!!!!

Cheap fix.... remove free hub..... remove weather seal...... WD40 the lot...... and more........

Let it drip dry.....

Clean out as best you can, and re-lube the hub side. Refill frame / axel cone side with grease, but not too much (this is important), refit, check cones and see how it goes..... you will need to re-check cone/hub grease...

Otherwise - get a new freehub ..... or like I did, a whole hub assembly - cheaper (for Deore) then strip........

Cheap Shimano freehubs hate too much grease - sticks the pawls..... finish line waterproof they dislike immensely other than on the hub bearings..... - freehub side use just a good clear grease in sparce quantities...

The good hubs don't need any sorting out....... been there done it............ !

 

[Chuffy]

Right! Have finally rustled up a 10mm allen key and spent the evening in a freezing outhouse stripping and re-fitting the free hub.

The Park Tools guide said to use 'liquid lubricant' on the freehub bearings. I assumed that this means lube as opposed to grease, so I dripped in a bit of Finish Line Extreme chain lube.

Testing tomorrow. There will be either a happy dance or screams of rage and frustration. Watch this space....

 

[Chuffy]

 

[mickle]

New freehub body required I suspect..

I hate to say I told you so

 

[Chuffy]

I hate to say I told you so

Next thing to try is to bodge on a freehub from an old wheel.

What I can't figure out is how the freehub went from working fine to being knacked in the length of time it took me to change a sprocket...

 

[P.H]

What makes SS conversions eat freewheels? I've gone through two in a year on my least used bike and never worn one out on a geared bike. Next time I'll go for a specific SS hub.

 

[Chuffy]

What makes SS conversions eat freewheels? I've gone through two in a year on my least used bike and never worn one out on a geared bike. Next time I'll go for a specific SS hub.

Hmmmm. All I can think of is that all of the load is on one place on the hub, rather than being spread across the cassette. But that still seems a bit feeble.

Hmmmmmmm, dedicated SS hub build....


Edit - Just a thought. My hub is a 10spd. Does that mean that the cassette body is a little longer and the wheel more unevenly dished? And would it help if I moved the sprocket a little closer to the centre to reduce the leverage on the cassette body?

 

[fossyant]

Makes no odds where the sprocket is - so long as chain line is good.

 

[bornagain]

I can't be arsed to read the whole thread, but I believe I've just had a very similar problem with my commuting bikes Fulcrum 7 rear wheel.

I was out for a ride and lost all drive, I could rotate the chainwheel, the chain and cassette turned, but there was no drive forwards. Occasionally the freehub would catch and I could make some progress, but it was very hit and miss.

The tick-tick noise that a freehub makes when the wheel is rotating but you are not pedaling had dissapeared.

When I eventually got home, I removed the cassette, and took the freehub off the wheel - I found that the coil of wire (actually its a spring) that goes round the pawls (and holds then out so they catch and drive against the teeth inside the wheel) was broken into two parts.

I bought a new spring from the LBS (£4.50 for about 0.1g of spring steel) fitted it and the problem was fixed and the wheel back in the bike 30 minutes getting home with the new spring.

Pisseasy to repair if you can get a new spring.....

Make sense ?

P.

 

[Crackle]

What I can't figure out is how the freehub went from working fine to being knacked in the length of time it took me to change a sprocket...

errrmmm..... has anyone suggested you're a heavy handed clumsy so and so......No? I thought not, they're all too polite. And so it falls to me, to point out that this may be the case.




...And that avatar is evidence that freehubs quake when they see you coming arriving.

 

[Chuffy]

New freehub body required I suspect.

Right, I fitted the brand new freehub this evening.

It still skips.

The chain is new, the sprocket is new, everything about the setup is exactly as it was before I changed sprockets about three million years ago, back in those happy days when the f'kin thing just worked.

Any more ideas?

 

[MartinC]

It would be interesting to know what happens when it skips. I guess it only skips intermittently when you're riding so it's hard to see. The question is when it skips is the chain slipping over the rear sprocket, over the chainring or is the freehub slipping. Maybe you could get someone to ride behind you and watch or rid on a turbo with the resistance turned right up.

Looking again at your original picture the tensioner is seriously reducing the chain wrap on the rear sprocket and I would want to eliminate this if it were my bike.

I can only imagine that the teeth on a chainwheel would have to be very, very worn for the chain to slip on them.

The chances of getting a duff (new) freehub must be low but it's an unproven component.

This sounds like one of those really irritating problems when there's either more than on source of the error or substituing other components introduces another.

It must be really frustrating and I hope you find the answer soon. I'd be really interested to know what it is when you find it.

 

[Crackle]

Looking again at your original picture the tensioner is seriously reducing the chain wrap on the rear sprocket and I would want to eliminate this if it were my bike.

That suggestions got some merit. Has the tensioner spring worn or can you adjust more tension in it: Can you run it direct without a tensioner as a test?

Edit: Yes I did read the earlier tensioner posts. It's not slipping on the chainwheel is it?

 

[Chuffy]

The tensioner is the one part that I’ve not replaced or swapped around. The pic was taken over a year ago and it worked just fine. I’ve tried removing a link (shortening the chain and increasing wrap) and that makes no difference.
The skipping seems to occur as soon as I put any pressure on the pedals.

I feel like throwing the damn thing in the nearest skip….


Chainwheel? Unlikely (they don't wear out that fast, surely?) but I'll give it the once over.

 

[MartinC]

Don't bin it - just think how chuffed (sorry) you'll feel when you solve it!

I think to make progress you need to find some way to see what's happening when you put load on the pedals and it skips.