Hi

I’m running an XT rear hub on my Stooge. I’ve had a few problems with wear and dirt ingress. I’ve taken the freehub off and removed the seal. Cleaned it, put some oil in it and regreased the balls bearings.

But sometimes I’m still getting slippage, and I’ve noticed there is quite a lot of rock or play between the freehub and the hub itself, as well as a dry running sound.

Wondering how people do maintenance on the freehub as it is basically a sealed unit.

Also are there any XT compatible freehubs available?
What other rear hubs have good durability and reliability.

I’m doing in the region of 5000-6000km per year mainly off road and generally wet and muddy conditions.

Thanks

Worn innards?
I think the deal is you buy another hub and swap out whatever you can.
Otherwise for me hope seem to provide excellent low maintenance hub with nice sealed bearings you can swap without precise cone spanner work etc.

I run Xt hubs and all I do is buy a donor hub when required and do a full strip and replace everything. The hubs are about £30 and you get a free pen holder.

If its just the freehub which has play in it and the bearing cups in the hubshell are fine then you can just replace the freehub. No need to go replacing or buying a new hub.
The maintenance you’ve been doing on the freehub is good, but they reach a point where they are just worn out.
Thats why I’ve used Hope Hubs for quite some time. I killed an STX freehub in about 3 rides once.

The hubs are about £30 and you get a free pen holder.

Thats why I’ve used Hope Hubs for quite some time. I killed an STX freehub in about 3 rides once.

Yep by the time you strip out 3 Shimano hobs you are at break even for the hope which might have needed a couple of bearings and not much more in that time.

New shimano-compatible freehub is pretty cheap, normally. I’ve killed one in three years – ironically it only died because I stupidly decided to squirt some oil in it!

OP’s is definitely on the way out, probably better to replace it straight away than to lose drive in the middle of a moor somewhere.

Yep by the time you strip out 3 Shimano hobs you are at break even for the hope which might have needed a couple of bearings and not much more in that time.

But 2x bearing change in a hope hub costs about the same as a new XT hub. SKF 6001’s are about £2.99 each and an XC hub takes 4 of them (and the hub is £100 more in the first place).

2 years/4000miles is about all I ever get/got from XT freehubs, they’re not serviceable but they are cheap so just bin and replace.

I’ve now got hope hubs on most of my bikes, but maintenance isn’t really any better because 4000miles is a lot to ask of a rim so TBH I think shimano got it right in building a hub that last’s just long enough to see off a rim in average XC use.

Like Martin I found mine always died immediately after any maintenance trying to resolve the first signs of slipping. Squirting oil in them dissolves the last of the grease, packing with grease just gums up the pawls. If it’s slipping, just bin it.

Guys, that has been really helpful. I had been afraid that I was doing something wrong. I think the point about cleaning/oiling and getting grease in the pawls explains a lot.

Looks like I might be looking at my second pen holder or at Hope.

Cheers

and an XC hub takes 4 of them

True but the 2 inner ones last a while. The outers are the ones that cause most/any probs in my experience.

Some newer xt freehubs bodies are quite fragile iirc.

Heavy oil is usually suggested

If really keen you can strip the freehub…..

Remove cassette and axle. Remove balls and the shield thing they hide behind (usually damaging it). You then need to make or find a tool that fits the notches in the bearing cup. It unscrews clockwise (lh thread), usually followed by lots of rust, muck and ball bearing remains.

Long time since I’ve used xt hubs, the freehub seemed to go wobbly quite quickly. The freehub was almost as much as a whole new hub. I did see a video on YouTube of a way to get into the freehub and service it. I use hope pro2’s now, bearings last forever and freehub easy to service.

Yup don’t mess about get a donor hub and replace it, the tiny rubber seals are worn out. It’s easy if you have a chain whip, cassette removal tool, 10mm allen key, a decent cone spanner and are used to doing cup and cone hubs!

Modernish 😆 Shimano freehubs of the same axle length and cassette size are for the most part interchangeable because the axle bearings on the DS are part of the freehub body and the drive teeth are on the hub itself! Most use a 10 mm fixing bolt with a 10 tooth count female fitting, depends on the particular hub! Deore and XT are very similar for example.

I did it recently. The old freehub was Deore M525 and the new hub (M525A) had a revised DS race position and cone seal/washer arrangement. Replaced the lot on the DS of the axle it was dead easy.

Link to the thread. Deore Freehub

If thru axle the freehub will have a 14 mm fixing bolt.