I have play in the top couple of cogs on my XT cassette. They are rotating a few degrees independently of the rest of the cassette.

I only discovered this late last night and haven’t had a chance to take it all apart and have a closer look. After some pointers really so if I need to order some parts I can do it in time for the weekends ride.

My thinking is it must be an issue with the cassette but could there be a freehub issue that could cause this?

Is the carrier they’re on moving too? if so then the cassette probably isn’t tight enough. if not, then cassette sounds borked, although I’ve never seen that happen tbh.

Sounds like the free hub has stripped from the hub or the cassette is loose.

your most used cogs would you say?

with normal usage on alu freehubs they can dig into the soft metal which can give a couple of degrees rotation

I wouldn’t expect them to feel loose though

Arent the first 5 or 6 (biggest) sprockets mounted on the alu carrier though on XT cassettes? If so the actual sprockets are loose on the carrier, rather than the freehub.

Is it the XT 771 10 speed cassette?
If it is, then check for the rivets that hold the cogs to the spider… Few months ago the rivets/pins on the middle spider gave up totally, leaving me with 3 cogs moving freely on the cassette! But I got it replaced under warranty (CRC’s fantastic customer service!), just to discover recently that it was happening again! The pins were getting more and more play… And CRC accepted that under warranty too and sent me money back – it must be bad design.

No more XT cassettes for me. Deore is the way to go – not much heavier, but build like a tank.

Is the spacer fitter behind the cassette?

honestly just sounds like the lockring has come a bit loose…

If the lockring was loose, all the sprockets would move…..
Sounds like the rivet issue mentioned by medoramas ^^^.

not neccesarily.. depends on type of freehub (alloy or steel) certainly i’ve seen it where a loose lockring can present itself with one or two loose cogs and the others appear fine because they have gouged into the freehub and are essentially locked in place.

First place to look tho.

^^^ This.I had to get a lockring with longer/deeper thread as the XT was not locking on my Hope hub. Now have a Token one from CRC.

If the last 3 sprockets are moving, but the rest aren’t then it has to be the carrier rivets. The 5 or 6 biggest sprockets are mounted on their own alu carrier on XT Cassettes, so if the cassette was loose on the freehub all 5 or 6 on the carrier would move. If some of the sprockets on the carrier are moving independently of the others on the same carrier then it has to be the rivets.

a loose lockring can present itself with one or two loose cogs and the others appear fine because they have gouged into the freehub and are essentially locked in place.

This is exactly what had happened. Was a nightmare getting the smaller cogs off but once they were I filed the burred edges on the free hub, slid everything back on and tightened it all up. Job done.

Cheers for the help.

Out of interest what model number of the cassette and how many cogs are on the alu carrier? If only 3, could it actually be SLX?

Boom!