Hi all – took advantage of the tropical weather at Glentress yesterday & gave my bike a mild thrashing, got at least 10′ of air (cumulatively) & was generally quite awesome, even overtook some rad looking toddlers on balance bikes 8)

Anyway – on the way back down I started noticing a mild grumbling sound from the rear hub when under power & using the bottom couple of cogs (9 speed XT) which got louder the rockier the surface was – anyone familiar with these symptoms? I was thinking it might be the freehub bearings – wheel is an old Bonty Rhythm Elite with needle roller bearings & another bearing mounted in a carrier which looks like a pain in the anoos to get out – here’s a stock pic:

And a diagram – ignore the arrow:

These wheels have an issue with a locating pin (used to line up the rim for welding) inside the rim coming loose which rattles around & i’ve experienced this a couple of times but this sounded altogether different – a bit more clunky i’d say… by them time i got home & washed the bike then put it away i forgot to pull the freehub & check it out – anyone any ideas?

Cheers,
john

Anyone on the night shift? 😛

I recently had similar symptoms with a different hub, turned out the freehub body had cracked massively under each pawl, flaring out as I pedalled.

Hmmm – never actually thought of anything like that tbh, it still pedalled fine, albeit a bit crunchily – I’ll pull it tonight & get a proper look at it in case it’s humped & about to collapse on me altogether

Cheers!
J

Pretty sure that’s a re-badged DT Onyx hub, so a word of warning before you order any parts, if you come across a bearing (outer freehub if memory serves me right)marked as 6001, double check the measurements of it, as it’s likely to actually be a 16100 with a 6001 seal fitted. It’ll be a frustrating and time consuming, though not too expensive, mistake to make if you haven’t got a stock of bearings.

Yeah Coatesy – that’s them, decent enough wheelset, wide rims & surprisingly light too, were over £300 when new apparently… I picked them up cheap on ebay a while back though so don’t mind spending money on bearings / pawls etc. if that’s all it is. If the freehub is only held together by the cassette like rsl1’s experience it may be another matter…

Cheers,
J