My new bike came with XT M778 wheels (with 15mm front hub) that I’d like to swap onto my skinnier tyred XC bike – only problem is that the XC bike has a QR fork 😕 Does anyone know if the M778 XT hubs can be converted to QR?

Searches I’ve done so far suggest that it can’t be done, just wondered if anyone knows different(?).

TIA

no, don’t believe they can as the internal cones are different on the 15mm hub.

🙁 oh bu**er. I was hoping it would ‘just’ be a case of getting some suitable end cap type jobbies, like the Pro 2 type things. I know a couple of fellas that could potentially machine something up for me, but it sounds like it might involve more work than a quick ‘lunchbreak job’.

Might be possible to make a 15mm sleeve with a QR hole drilled through it? Not sure how well that’d work though!

Shimano hubs are cup and cone so you have one concave race as an integral part of the hub shell and a seperate one externally between which loose ball bearings sit so unfortunately it’s not possible as the cones that thread onto a QR axle don’t align and allow you to preload the bearings.

Unlike most Sealed bearing hubs, Shimano hubs use different shells for QR and 15/20mm hubs as opposed to one standard hub shell and bearing size with differing end caps.

Nor can you buy the M775 QR hub seperately (from the wheelset certainly) plus the flanges are different sizes on the QR and 15mm hubs so you would require new spokes (not cheap as they’re specific) and being UST rims they’re a more time consuming build. My advice would be to sell your existing wheel and buy a QR variant. probably won’t be a massive price differential between the two (in terms of what you could expect your 15mm wheel to yield and what you could pick up a new QR one for)

Thanks for the replies. Looks like I’ll have to sell ’em, which is a shame ‘cos they’d look great on my other bike…………might have to save some pennies and upgrade the fork lowers to 15mm’s 😉