I know this is an OLD topic and much talked about but Google is failing me here. I have converted several 10-speed-only hubs to 11-speed by grinding down the freehub body by ~1.85mm but on Shimano hubs that will not work.
I have seen a mod where people (see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cazQt5oleo4) take some material off the back of the cassette body, but no one has confirmed that this will work without interfering with the spokes. I have a couple of CX wheels that I would like to use, and before I bust out the grinder…or rebuild the rear wheels with new hubs I thought it would be worth asking.
I have Shimano Ultegra 6600 hubs laced up with traditional J-bend spokes. Looking to run an 11-28 casette…
it’s not going to work. the 6600 hub is a 10s only hub. by grinding a 11s cassette you can make it 9s wide which is WIDER than 10s: it will go on 8-9-10s hubs (such as 7900’s, older zipp’s etc.), but not on 10s (6600’s, 7800’s…)
Yep beston that is the solution I am proposing…I am just concerned that the 28t cog will run into the spokes if I use a lathe to remove 1.85mm of material from the cassette “carrier”…
I have been to your site and it was super helpful. We are just trying to hammer out whether a 6600 hub will worth with the Lasco Concepts solution you outlined.
if you remove 1.85mm from a 11s cogset it becomes as wide as a 9s
BUT
it will not fit on the 6600 hub
BECAUSE
the 6600 hub can accomodate ONLY 10s cogsets (that are narrower than 9s)
a “machined” 11s cogset will instead fit on so called 8-9-10s hubs (i.e. 7900s)
hope it’s clearer now
Unfortunately, much of this above is incorrect.
Before 11-speed, (for shimano) nearly ALL 8/9/10 speed hubs could accept ANY 8-speed, 9-speed, 10-speed cassette in any combination. (Yes, 10-speed cassettes included a tiny spacer that was required to be used all of these standard hubs.) The only except to this were some now somewhat rare shimano proprietary hubs.
A shimano 6600 hub WILL accept 11-speed modified cassettes.
To be honest, I have only experience with the dura ace 7800 rear hub and it was “10s only”; a couple of years later it was replaced by the 7850, which was 8-9-10s. I believe that the 6600’s (Ultegra) implemented the same technology of the 7800’s
I have been to your site and it was super helpful. We are just trying to hammer out whether a 6600 hub will worth with the Lasco Concepts solution you outlined.
No worries, a standard shimano 6600 rear hub WILL indeed accept properly modified 11-speed shimano cassettes as long as the largest cog is 25T or larger.
Stop the press! Ultegra 8000 cassettes WILL FIT on a 10 speed freehub with NO MODIFICATIONS:
I saw this in the comments section of the video that you linked to: “You have probably heard, but Shimano’s nextgen Ultegra (8000?) comes with the option of 11 speed-fits-on 10 speed cassette.”
To follow up on this, I notice that a spacer is now used on 8000cassettes to install on a 11 speed hubs. Contrast this with longer 6800 cassettes that don’t require spacers. The width of the spacer used with the 8000 cassettes is exactly the same difference between the width of a 10s to 11s freehub body (1.85mm).
if you remove 1.85mm from a 11s cogset it becomes as wide as a 9s
BUT
it will not fit on the 6600 hub
BECAUSE
the 6600 hub can accomodate ONLY 10s cogsets (that are narrower than 9s)
a “machined” 11s cogset will instead fit on so called 8-9-10s hubs (i.e. 7900s)
hope it’s clearer now
Unfortunately, much of this above is incorrect.
Before 11-speed, (for shimano) nearly ALL 8/9/10 speed hubs could accept ANY 8-speed, 9-speed, 10-speed cassette in any combination. (Yes, 10-speed cassettes included a tiny spacer that was required to be used all of these standard hubs.) The only except to this were some very rare pre-built wheels from shimano that used some no longer manufactured rare shimano proprietary hubs.
A shimano 6600 hub WILL accept 11-speed modified cassettes.
I’ve had a dura ace 7800 32-hole rear hub and it accepted 10s cassettes ONLY. It was later replaced by the 7850, that was 8-9-10s compatible, as far as I know
Unless you’re telling me that my hub was some kind of prototype gone onto the market by mistake
Yes, you are correct. I was mistaken, I forgot to say there were also some now somewhat rare dura ace hubs that also only accepted shimano 10 speed cassettes.
But those hubs (and the shimano prebuilt wheels, the rear hubs looked like the photo below) were the only exception to what I wrote. But thanks for clarifying this.
Does not appear that this is confirmed to have worked, and I haven’t found a picture of the backside of the R8000 cassette to confirm that is has some material removed, or at least a dish but it sounds like a slam dunk…
Stop the press! Ultegra 8000 cassettes WILL FIT on a 10 speed freehub with NO MODIFICATIONS:
I saw this in the comments section of the video that you linked to: “You have probably heard, but Shimano’s nextgen Ultegra (8000?) comes with the option of 11 speed-fits-on 10 speed cassette.”
To follow up on this, I notice that a spacer is now used on 8000cassettes to install on a 11 speed hubs. Contrast this with longer 6800 cassettes that don’t require spacers. The width of the spacer used with the 8000 cassettes is exactly the same difference between the width of a 10s to 11s freehub body (1.85mm).
