Just spent a couple of very frustrating evenings servicing my SLX rear hub (M665)& now I’m done I can’t decide whether I’ve just been the victim of poor product design or if I’m just a bit crap at bike maintenance!? Maybe you can point me in the right direction?

Everything started so well. I removed the cassette, loosened the cone locking nut, unscrewed the cone, slid out the axle & removed the centre mounted disc rotor. I took out the bearing covers & bearings, cleaned everything & regreased the bearings, no problem.

However when I reinstalled the axle & put the disc brake back on I couldn’t get proper access to the cones & locking nut on either side of the hub!

On the non-drive side I could only get to the cone locking nut, not the cone & on the drive side I could only just hold the cone with the spanner to the point where the locking nut trapped my inner cone spanner against the freewheel when I tightened it up! I couldn’t remove the freewheel either, so in the end I had to leave nip up the cones by hand, which I’m not very happy about!

Am I missing a trick here or is it just a bad design?
If I’m being a muppet, just say so, but please give me some pointers to avoid this in future.

Alternatively if you want to vent your spleen at Shimano let rip. I’ll probably buy Hope if I’ve got the cash next time anyway 😉

Not done an SLX but I’d guess:-

Remove the disc.
Only undo the cone and locknut on the non drive side.
Slide axle out and don’t undo the drive side cone.
Clean and service as normal.
Reassemble reverse of above (disc on last after nds cone adjusted).

Should be just as its suggested above , try YouTube for some how to or park tools website

Service and assemble hub then attach centre lock rotor. You cannot gain access to the cone on the drive side therefore you tighten it before you insert the axle into the hub.

Sounds like you have put the axle in the wrong way round.

Like others have said you only remove the locknut and cone from the non drive side and remove the axle from the drive side, and if the axle is removed there is no need to ever touch the drive side cone and locknut except to make sure it is locked together.

Thanks for your thoughts guys. Really appreciate it as it’s been driving me mad!

To be honest, I thought I’d put the axle in the wrong way round too, but I swapped it round and it still didn’t help! I even printed off a copy of the Shimano tech doc which shows the wide spacer on the non drive side. I then checked a mates wheel (which has never been serviced) to check it too which looks like this. You can see the wide washer/spacer just inside the locking nut.

IMAG1039 by Jonathan Roch, on Flickr

Also I couldn’t get the centre lock tool in place with the axle in place either. The locking nut stopped it from getting into position & engaging with the ring! Soooooo frustrating!

Centrelock tools always fit over the locknut unless it is some weird rubbish non-Shimano one where the hole isn’t deep enough – just sometimes need a wiggle.