I just got a pretty good deal on a set of used HED 3 wheels. They are a few years old (7?) and are look to be in really good shape. The only thing is that the rear hub “sticks” a bit and the front hub it not that fluid. By sticks I mean that when turning the spindle by with my fingers sometime it sticks a bit. Not so much that I have to put a lot of strength into it, but it’s noticeable.
How serviceable are these hubs? If it helps they say “6001DU ENGLAND NSK 084” on them, although I’m not sure if this is just the bearing.
Oh yea, they have 3 small inward deflections of no more than 2mm in the rim. Is this flat heaven for clinchers?
The hubs are rebuildable. Call HED and they will send you a set of sealed bearings. You can also replace the “ball bearings” in the cassette hub, and while there, oil, not grease, the pawls. Been there - done all this.
As far as the dents. They can be removed with care…wood block and a rubber mallet. Be careful!! Been there - done this too!!
Cool, now with that bearing you can choose an “ABEC” rating. Many companies use just “Machine Grade” bearings…then there are numbers - ABEC1, ABEC3, ABEC5 and so forth. The higher the number the better the bearing. Mind you that when they say better they mean that the balls are all something like .00001mm more round that the other ABEC rating (or something like that). I am not all that sold on the higher cost of ABEC 9 or what ever the highest rating is as they are really made for super high performance deals…like 200,000rpm spindles and stuff like that.
Here, I found this on some deal that Al Gore invented, the Internet…kinda makes you question Zipp’s ideas for Ceramic bearings eh?
About this page:
A lot of our customers are confused about what an ABEC rating means. The following info is from an American bearing company that manufactures ABEC rated bearings and non-ABEC rated bearings. What is ABEC?
ABEC stands for Annular Bearing Engineers’ Committee. This committee works to determine the standards for bearings for the Anti-Friction Bearing Manufacturers Association (AFBMA).
The ABEC scale classifies different accuracy and tolerance ranges for bearings. The first column of this table lists the five ratings in the ABEC scale. ABEC RatingsISO Class ABEC1 Class 0 ABEC3 Class 6 ABEC5 Class 5 ABEC7 Class 4 ABEC9 Class 2 The ABEC rating of a bearing is determined by the following (for a 608 size bearing): How close the bore is to 8mm in microns How close the outer diameter is to 22 in microns How close the width is to 7mm in microns The rotating accuracy in microns The second column of the table lists the corresponding tolerance classes as defined by ISO, the International Organization for Standardization. Both systems are widely used in the bearing industry but ABEC has been adopted by skate manufacturers. Does ABEC affect the speed of your skates?
No. Not unless you are skating at 330 mph. That’s based on a 608 bearing limiting speed of 32,000 rpm. Only in extremely high speed applications like ultra high speed motors and precision measuring instruments can bearings above ABEC 1 affect performance. Regardless of how fast you plan to go, speed is affected first and foremost by the choice of lubricant. If we’re going to talk about tolerances, the fit of your wheels and axles have a much greater effect on performance than ABEC rating. Wheels and axles for inline skates have extremely loose fits that allow you to press the bearings into the wheel by hand. This masks the benefits of a higher precision bearing by allowing it to slip on the axle or in the wheel. Slippage between the mating parts results in energy loss. Lost energy is lost speed. Lubricant What is it? The two most common lubricants are grease and oil. Grease is basically oil with a thickener or soap. The thickener acts like a sponge to soak up the oil when not in use. What does it do? keeps metal parts from wearing against one another keeps dirt away from the sensitive inner workings GreaseOil helps keep dirt out prevents material wear can suspend contaminants requires frequent servicing prevents material wear has low torque requires little servicing does not last as long increases torque lasts a long time From the above you can see that a greased bearing requires little servicing yet cannot run as fast as an oiled bearing. An oiled bearing is susceptible to dust and contamination so it needs to be serviced more often. As grease is thicker, it acts as a seal against dirt, but at the same time it can increase torque and slow down the bearing.
So the drive side has “loose” ball bearings and the non-drive side has a cartridge bearing. What are the pawls? Looks like I have a project for the weekend!
there is an other possible issue then. I was not aware that there was a cone bearing on the drive side. What you will want to do there is take out the axle and the bearings…clean up the surface in the wheel, as well as the cone. Then look at the cone and race - you will see a part that has visible wear on it from the bearings (should just shine, but not be a groove). What you will want to do is run a ball point pen down this area, if it feels rough with the pen, you have a bad cone or race it is VERY uncommon for a ball bearing to pit out with out damaging the race and cone. If you do have a bad race or cone all the new balls in the world will not roll smooth.
DO NOT great bearings in your freehub…that is bad bad bad…light oil in there only. Really for the time it takes to put all them damn tiny bearings back into the freehub body it is almost easier to just get a new one for $50.00 some odd bucks.
When you put it back together…if the bearings feel 100% proper and tight enough off the bike…they will be to tight on the bike. The QR will cause a bit of compression on the bearings and possibly over tighten them once they are in the bike. (dont you all hate it when I get so damn technical?)
When you remove the cassette body you’ll find the ball bearings. You can buy the correct size at the LBS. Sometimes they’ll have the sealed bearings you’ll need, too.
Pawls are the parts in the cassette body that engage the rear wheel when you pedal forward. If you grease them they won’t release and hence will not engage. Use OIL ONLY!!
here is another thing to keep in mind. When you remove the cassette body on an H3 or a specialized trispoke, you will have to have the wheel retrued here at the factory. These wheels are trued by shimming the cassette body against the hub shell. Unless you put the shim back exactly where it came from, and put the body back with the same splines on the same nubs on the body, the wheel is not likely to be true.
In this case, all this may not matter because if the wheel is 7 years old, it will have a pre '97 DA body on it. This body is hard to find except used, and it takes a special shimano tool to remove it. Since it takes the special tool, you probably can’t get it off and a lot of shops won’t be able to either, unless they have had the same mechanic for several years and he can remember what drawer the tool is in. -andy
feel free to call me with questions. 651-653-0202
Thanks Everyone for the help! After speaking to andyt on the phone, I’m going to give it a go myself. Makes me glad I bought the HEDs, good customer service is hard to come by these days. When I (finally) graduate and can afford some new wheels I won’t forget it.
I have a stupid question about these instructions. Most of the bearings come out pretty easy but I have one wheel where I cannot pull the bearings out, but have not yet resorted to the hammer. Do you mean one is supposed to hammer in the direction of the wheel, and not away from the wheel? That seems counterintuitive but that seems to be what is indicated by the photo of the crown race support, just want to be sure.
“Do you mean one is supposed to hammer in the direction of the wheel, and not away from the wheel?”
just using memory as my guide, i believe in that article i’m hammering the bearing INTO the wheel, not OUT OF the wheel. i believe i recommended a bearing puller to get the bearing out.
in my mind’s eye i can see using something sort of like a headset cup remover on wheel bearings. for this use it would have to be a much miniaturized version that gets pushed through the hole inside the bearing you want removed. then the flared ends would spring out to their normal diameter after getting pushed all the way through the bearing’s inside race. this diameter would correspond to the size of the smaller race, that is, the tool would be pushing against that race.
the idea is to have a tool long enough so that when you pushed it through the bearing the leading edge would pop out of the bearing on the other side. then you could whack it and press out your wheel bearing. then, when one is out, the other is a snap, you don’t need the too anymore for that side.
you could probably make this tool out of the appropriate diameter tube. or maybe there’s one that’s already made for the purpose.