So with the Joys of winter riding comes the pleasure of dirty and wet roads, unfortunately this can increase wear on moving parts on the bike, while out the other night my front wheel bearing started to sound like a bag of spanners had been let loose in there so I decided it was time for a overhall.
At the end of the hub there are what looks like two nuts on each end one of them being a lock nut, the other being a cone which sets the tension of the bearings they generally require a pair of cup and cone spanners to loosen the lock nut before the cone will unscrew by hand, but if you don't own a pair a normal spanner should do but it may make life difficult when setting bearing tension later on, there not normally expensive. Normally only one side should be undone and the other locknut and cone should be left in tack, this should become obvious by trying both lock nuts ....one will be noticeably looser than the other.
with the wheel removed from the bike and the quick release skewer removed from the center of the axle its time to undo the lock nut and cone when i undid mine i found only 9 bearing on one side and 10 on the other, id say over time one of the bearings has broken up and fallen out which is why my wheels sounded like they did, luckily i had a spare hub (which i have used for ease in these photos) however spare bearings can be had from the likes of halfords.
I removed the bearings and cleaned the hub and axle, i find any solvent will do, petrol diesel white spirit etc once i had cleaned the bearing cup and top race i packed it full of red grease so it would hold the bearings in place and keep them lubricated
assembly is reverse of dismantling, it pays to place everything in order on a clean table as to make life easier when re assembling.
with the wheel removed from the bike and the quick release skewer removed from the center of the axle its time to undo the lock nut and cone when i undid mine i found only 9 bearing on one side and 10 on the other, id say over time one of the bearings has broken up and fallen out which is why my wheels sounded like they did, luckily i had a spare hub (which i have used for ease in these photos) however spare bearings can be had from the likes of halfords.
I removed the bearings and cleaned the hub and axle, i find any solvent will do, petrol diesel white spirit etc once i had cleaned the bearing cup and top race i packed it full of red grease so it would hold the bearings in place and keep them lubricated
assembly is reverse of dismantling, it pays to place everything in order on a clean table as to make life easier when re assembling.
when putting the axle back through be careful not to knock any of the bearings out. Now comes the time for some black magic when setting the bearing tension with the cone nut the bearings have to be held tight enough in place to not allow any excess movement but loose enough to not cause too much friction, I find hand tight is right :), once this tension is set use the cup and cone spanners to hold the cone nut in place while nipping up the lock nut.
one final note on re assembly when placing the wheel back in place, make sure the side of the axle that has been undone is on the right, this is in case there is any movement in these two nuts the motion of the wheel spinning round will cause it to loosen them rather than tighten them which would cause the wheel to seize, this wheel now has 500 winter road miles in it and i hope to have many more!
happy riding.
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