Anyone done this for a mtb and is it really noticeably better for the £80 cost?
If you blow out pawls then yes. If you don't then probably not.
But, upgraditis is hard to ignore and 36 is better than 18.
I bought the conversion kit months back, but haven't been able to remove the original ratchet ring thing from the hub to fit it despite various combinations of heat and lots of leverage on the correct tool. I have two, or maybe three, DT Swiss star ratchet hubs and they're brilliant for long term reliability and make a nice noise, but... you will at some point need the special tool to remove the ring to access the bearing behind it, which you'll also need to use to install the conversion. You'll also need a different, but similar, tool to remove the 3-pawl ratchet ring, so that's a fair expense, even with cheapo eBay copies.
On top of that, the basic star ratchet, which is supplied with the conversion has relatively slow engagement, so you may end up upgrading the star ratchets as well and you might want to factor that into the cost. It sounds nice though.
So yeah, I think the star gizmo is probably better, but it's a pig to fit ime and you'll either have to pay a shop to install it or invest in two special tools.
I might try installing it again tomorrow mind, I'd half forgotten I owned it 🙂
My lad broke the pawls and I ended up just getting a new ratchet hub and swapping the rim / straight pull spokes across. If you can build your own wheels and maybe need fresh bearings + ratchet tools then that is potentially just as cheap and in some cases better sealed.
Thanks for the replies.
After reading them I’ll probably just wait until I destroy the old ones in the freehub then replace it with the star ratchet ones. I guess this will save me a few quid and there’s no real point upgrading when the current ones still work ok. It’s probably just my brain telling me that they’re not engaging quickly enough. Annoying that you need to buy tools to change them although I suppose once you have them they’ll get used forever.