my old Hope XC axle snapped last week. knocked it out along with all the bearings, got new axle and 4x bearings and 3x pawls and 3x springs from Hope. fitted the hub bearings fine and got the axle in but it was tight. knocked out the freehub bearings and fitted new ones just fine.

but pushing the freehub with new bearings on to the new axle is seriously tight. chose not to push it all the way in. it was so tight that i don’t think i would get it out if i wanted to.

the new axle is really tight in the new bearings and the old bearings. the old broken axle slides snugly in the new bearings and the old bearings.

rang Hope at 4pm this afternoon after all this action and they have gone home for the day/weekend.

is the axle too thick? what’s going on? any thoughts?

Is the spacer in the freehub body slightly out of line?

anyone got any ideas?

spacer is perfectly in line. the new axle has the supertight fit problem with the old and new bearings when they’re nowhere near the freehub. i reckon the problem is the axle.

Have you measured the axle compared to the original?
Did the replacement come from Hope, as I thought they’d run out of XC axles now

are the new bearings the same size as the old ones?

the old axle is definitely thinner than the new one. used Vernier calipers at work – bike shop – and i can’t remember the dims but def thinner by a miniscule amount.

all new kit inc. replacement axle was from Hope.

haven’t measured new bearings but they were listed on Hope’s B2B website as for XC hub. the 4x new bearings went into the hub and freehub perfectly and the old axle slides in and out of them easily. it’s just the new axle that is supertight.

is it possible for an axle to be slightly thicker? is there a margin of error on manufacturing?