Evening all,

Got a mate who’s got an issue with a shimano freehub. I’ve not worked on them before…

It’s got lateral play of about 1mm. Is this a known fault? Is it a bin and replace or is there a way of nipping the freehub up?

It’ll likely just need adjusting with a cone spanner. How much use has it had and has it ever been serviced?

It’s only 2 months old. Does the cup and cone on the axles affect the freehub too?

Do you mean the freehub moves away from the main part of the hub or does the whole hub move?

cup and cone axle is what both the freehub and the main hub run on. Yes the cones can be tightened – really basic 19th century engineering. YOu might be able to get it play free and smooth or not depending why the play has developed. Its a bit of a black art – look it up on Sheldon brown

http://www.sheldonbrown.com/cone-adjustment.html

Play in the freehub = the cassette wobbles.

All mine do this (not D-A or XTR), usually comes on once you’ve ridden a few km, doesn’t get worse for 20000km or so. Then you loose drive and replace the freehub.

Usually not that much though, can usually just barely feel it.

I’d keep an eye on it for a couple of weeks and see if gets worse. Or does anything else. Don’t go anywhere near the axle. It’s not related. Especially if you’ve never worked on cup and cone hubs.

Freehub is (slightly) user serviceable. But for the amount of time it takes, and the chance of failure later on, it’s usually easier to just replace it.

Thanks guys I’ve worked on loads of cup and cone axles. Just looking for advice as I’ve never worked on and xt freehub before and wanted to know if there is a known issue that’s fixable.

Found some videos on replacing one and that’s straight forward.

It’s got lateral play in just the freehub not the whole axle. The first person made it sound like you could nip up the freehub with cup and cone but from the rest of the responses and the video I’ve seen Tey are independent of the axle.

I’ve only seen a video message of it, at first we thought his cassette was loose, theb after removing the cassette you can still see the play in the video when you pull on the freehub.

Next question.. are all shimano xt freehubs the same or does the year matter?

If it’s actually possible to move it in and out along the axis of the hub, it’s probably shot.

Generation does matter. They seem to change almost at random. The actual interface to the hub will be the same, but the drive side cup location changes, so you need to muck around with spacers sometimes.

It always used to be cheaper and easier to buy a whole hub and strip it down than source the correct freehub.

I’ve seen Tey are independent of the axle.

They are, tightening the cup and cone won’t remove the play from the freehub and the freehub isn’t serviceable, although spares are available(for about the price of a hub).

Wouldn’t worry about it unless it’s affecting shifting\engagement, think all of mine have, or have had small amounts of play in them, not something you notice when riding, you need to go looking for it.