Is this common? Stripped down the tandem free-hub this morning as it was a bit tight and found the inner bearing in pieces and the central one had managed to snap the inner race into two parts. At least the outer bearing was OK.

Can’t help but I keep meaning to strip my rear evo 2 as that has gone tight too, it has taken a bit of a battering over the past few years without being touched tbf.

Yep I had exactly this a few weeks ago, somehow mine was still working fine but I’d lost chain clearance on the rear in tenth gear and the chain was catching on the frame, the bearings had trashed themselves and pushed the whole freehub out. Made a right mess, loose ball bearings split in half, inner races in bits, outer races seized in freehub (which was a pain in the arse to drift out). Never had it before on the older pro 2 hubs. These let go even before I’d done a main bearing change, normally I’ll do main bearings twice before the freehub ones need doing.

It’s fairly normal for the free hub body bearings to let go before the main bearings as they are much smaller, I’m surprised you didn’t feel them starting to go though before total destruction occurred.

The ones I replaced earlier in the week were creaking which lead me to investigate further, have been used all year however with no maintenance until that point.

Waves at Blazin-S…..e-mail address? 😀

I’ve posted about this too today!

Exactly the same bearing has gone in mine, leaving a damaged bearing carcus still in the freehub, gonna be a pain removing it.

Hopefully if I can remove it I’ll simply replace both bearings, pawls and springs then reassemble.

Blazin-saddles – Member
I’m surprised you didn’t feel them starting to go though before total destruction occurred.

The ones I replaced earlier in the week were creaking which lead me to investigate further, have been used all year however with no maintenance until that point.

It’s not quite the same feel with a tandem as there’e another influence sitting behind you…………she did mention a “funny noise back here” but I couldn’t hear anything due to my ears being kept warm with a scull cap. It was only later when I tried to back pedal to oil the chain that I realised what the problem was. The hub is only 5 months old and the internals were still clean and greased. There’s a lot more load going through a tandem transmission compared to “half a bike” though.

Fair point. I’d forgotten that part of the equation!

Rorschach – dc30online At gmail.com sorry, thought id was in my profile. ta.

Look like I’m all sorted now 😀 . JD Tandems used their courier to collect the wheel yesterday and they’ve just rung to say that it’s been fitted with a new free-hub as the broken bearing had damaged the original one…………that’s what I call good service. They are going to send the old one back to Hope.

I had the same thing happen on a 6 month old singlespeed hub – posted the freehub back to Hope for rebuild and they sent a complete new one the same day.

I’m now in the habit of pulling the freehub off every 3 or 4 months and cleaning out and replacing any broken springs (the pawl leaf springs seem to break quite regularly and I’m sure the fragments help trash the inner needle roller bearing).