Got this wheelset about a month ago, only a couple hundred miles on them, but the front bearing feels pretty rough. Does it need to break in? Should I repack the grease? Is this normal?
For cup and cone bearings, the axle should wiggle ever so slightly when the wheel is off the bike. It should turn very smoothly. So it sounds like you need to loosen the cones slightly. Once you have a bit of wiggle in the axle, put the wheel in the bike and tighten the QR loosely just making the wheel firm in the dropouts. The rim should wiggle between the brake shoes a tiny bit. As you tighten the QR, the wiggle at the rim should go away. That’s a perfect adjustment.
From what I understand the way the way the wheel feels in your hand is irrelevant. The bearings are designed to work best under the weight and torque of a rider not free spinning by hand.
From what I understand the way the way the wheel feels in your hand is irrelevant. The bearings are designed to work best under the weight and torque of a rider not free spinning by hand.
That is true for sealed bearings, but not for cup and cone.
They should be adjusted as I described.
If there’s one bicycle maintenance evolution I know how to do to a tee, it is adjusting DA hubs. I’ve been doing it for about 30 years.
Short thread hi-jack: I’m restoring a late 70’s bike for just casual riding (it has sentamental value). It currently has cup and cone hubs. As I don’t actually like working on bikes I was thinking of changing out to sealed bearing hubs. Is there **any **performance / maintenance advantage to cup and cone bearings? Thkanks
Ok, I just bought cone wrenches and I’m gonna loosen them up. For NEW DA hubs, they only adjust from one side, correct?
You’ll need to remove the skewer and put a 5mm allen key in the right side* for leverage. Break the locknut and cone nut on the left side and adjust away. Since this is your first time, just do it slowly and get a feel for how small an adjustment is necessary. Like an 1/8 turns on the cone is the difference between great and just good.
*The Dura Ace lettering should be right side up when the hub is oriented correctly.
Do you mean attempting to convert those hubs to sealed bearings? Could probably be done by a machine shop at a $$ cost that exceeds the price of the wheels or bike… Or just put on different wheels with sealed bearings?
As to which is better, I can give you two opinions to be objective!
Retrogrouch answer: Pros: Cup & cone are easily serviced, can be adjusted super smooth (assuming good quality like Campy and DA) and seals spin freely with very little drag. Sealed bearing usually have more drag, but for a lot of extra $$$ you can upgrade to ceramic and be back to the same smoothness of cup & cone. This is great for the bike industry and ceramic bearing manufacturers! Cons: looser seals may result in water intrusion when riding in wet conditions.
Modern answer: Sealed bearings don’t require any maintenance and in this day and age of less skilled mechs, it is better to have sealed rather than poorly adjusted cup & cone. Also, you don’t ever have to service them, just replace them. In addition, they usually resist water better (certain BB sealed bearings excluded here). Maybe lighter? (Not by much)
Ok, I just did the front, and it os buttery smooth now. It was just cranked down too tight from the factory. The rear is spinning pretty smooth, but there is no play when the QR isn’t tightened, so it probably should be loosened a bit.
Any tricks to getting the rear dust cap off? Do I use a cone wrench on the left side, and a 5mm allen wrench in the drive side? I did this, cranked pretty hard, and nothing happened, so I wasn’t sure if I was doing it right.
Thanks for the help
edit: actually, I said that wrong, both the cone wrench and the allen wrench can go on the non-drive side, but I can budge the dust cap
You may need to take off the cassette, but I don’t usually remove the dust cap on the rear to adjust it. I pop out the dust covers very carefully with a plastic tire tool. Work your way around, don’t do it all at once. The drive side is pretty hard to do. The left is is not so bad.
Yes, rear will be pretty much the same as front, but I think the cone wrench is a size bigger 17mm. You can put two wrenches or a wrench and 5mm on the left to break the locknut and cone from each other too.