Sturmey Archer AW - How many balls in the ball ring?

[thebicyclist]

The Sturmey Archer instructions state that 24 balls should be in the ball ring. My hub had 25, so I took one out. Now I can hear a ball drop every revolution. Does anyone with experience know whether this should be the case? Thanks.

[fatfixie]

24 is fine. Use a good grease in the race and you shouldn't hear em...

Andy

[thebicyclist]

Thanks Andy. I'm not that worried about the noise, so long as the hub isn't being damaged by too few bearings. There just seems to be so much free space with only 24. I didn't try, but I reckon that one could just about fit in 26. It looked right with 25. Would you say that 24 is better than 25?

[thebicyclist]

The noise that the hub was making didn't seem right considering that I had greased the ball ring fairly liberally. I hypothesised that there may be a ball rolling around where it shouldn't be. I confirmed this by taking the hub apart. One of the ball ring balls must have dropped out of the ball ring when I accidentally bumped the hub during reassembly. Problem solved. Thanks.