Shimano hub adjustment...

[Abby]

Hi all,

About to tackle my first ever hub adjustment!!

My the front hub in my do-everything long-serving Shimano RS-80 wheelset has developed a little bit of play. Can knock it back-&-forth a ittle when normally set up in the forks.

Plenty of youtube videos to help me work out how to do this for a Shimano cup-&-cone bearing. Just wondering if there is anything else I should do while I'm in there? Is there anything else that's relatively simple to do while I am mucking about with the hub?

Thanks all!

[biker jk]

Check the condition of the ball bearings and cups/cones, re-grease.

[Tim]

It was once common practice for bike shops to replace ball bearings when they serviced hubs (and bottom brackets).
Nowadays most hubs have crappy, user unfriendly press fit cartridge bearings. Hurray for Shimano sticking with cups, cones and ball bearings.
RS80 front hubs are 3/16” balls.
The rear hubs are 1/4”. You might as well do them too. If the front ones are stuffed chances are the rear ones are too.
They are dirt cheap.
I like RS80 wheels. I had a faithful pair which ran for over 30,000 km’s without fault, or servicing.
Now running on RS81’s. They’re shaping up very well.

I find Shimano tech docs/Dealers Manual is a much better reference source than YouTube or any of the other web sites, other than Park Tools for general info.
http://si.shimano.com/#/

[MelodyWheels]

Shimano use stainless steel loose ball bearings so I recommend leaving them in there unless there are obvious signs of pitting on the cone. That or replace with original Shimano ball bearings.

In terms of servicing, the cup and cone overhaul is one of the simplest yet most poorly executed mechanical services. To get a good adjusting you really need an axle vice, quick release compression is a real issue on threaded axles so you want to adjust with a 'tick' of play. Don't use too much grease.... about enough to fill 1/3 of the cup is plenty. A grease gun is your friend.

[Duck!]

Another key trick for adjusting cup-n-cone hubs is to just slightly overtighten the cone initially. When you then go to tighten the locknut against the cone to secure them, quirks of opposing rotations of the cone & locknut on the axle will conspire to loosen the cone on the bearings.

as the above post suggests, you do need to leave a tiny bit of slack to allow for bearing compression, but if there's too much slop & the wheel is still wobbling when fitted to the bike, the bearings will suffer rapid damage from chattering between the cups and cones.