Trying to do the above on a general overhaul of my Pro4 hub. It was in an awful state inside when I took the freehub off - think maintenance was long overdue. I’d noticed it was less clicky than previously and maybe it was dragging a bit etc.
One pawl spring was basically disintegrated, and the other 3 were gunned up. I’ll pop a photo at the bottom of this post for general amusement purposes.
Essentially the pawls weren’t moving much / freely like they should be and one wasn’t engaging at all.
Overall the bearings are still moving ok but not as smooth as when new so I’m replacing all 4 for good measure - the pawls have cleaned up ok so reusing those but I have new springs and a new green seal on the way.
All bearing removal was quite easy except for the outboard bearing in the microspline freehub.....it’s held in place by a circlip that doesn’t have any holes in it for circlip pliers. Wtf would this be a good idea? I’ve spent ages trying to get the circlip out - first with picks but in the end I succeeded with 2 tiny flat head screwdrivers.
The circlip isn’t in the best shape but I haven’t ordered a beer one as I wasn’t anticipating this nonsense. Hopefully it’ll go back in roughly circlip shaped and do the job 🤞
Vent over!
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There is a tail you use to lift the end of snap ring out the groove, then move it towards you slightly. Its a little fiddly the first few times until you get the technique right. Seal pick or small flat bladed screw drive should do it. If you are having issues you can clamp the freehub in a vice so it is secure and you have two hands free to manipulate, you can use one tool the lift the end out the groove, then use a 90 seal pick to pull it out towards you.
You're not the first and you won't be that last. Not tried myself yet but I've heard of others having the same issue.
Yeah I couldn’t really find any information on it online other than the Hope diagram which shows the circlip is in there.
Saw the little tail thing but it took me ages to dislodge the circlip from its groove. All the picks I had weren’t strong enough to lift it out the groove - one actually bent on the end.
It was a tiny flathead screwdriver that eventually got the end out then used another one to get more of it out the groove. I wondered about a vice but don’t have one with soft jaws and was worried about damaging the splines on the freehub body.
Ohh that snap ring is a monumental pain in the bum..
I did manage it with a screw driver eventually but it took quite a lot of professional swearing
Considering Hope are normally very good with the engineering and the ease of fixing stuff this seems a little out of character
Edit
I put it in the jaws of my bike stand rather than a vice…
Ah jaws of bike stand are a great idea!
The other way to do it is to have a much smaller outboard bearing than this design allows. Presumably Hope thought that was a worse option.
I was thinking perhaps they could have used a circlip with holes in it....
It's not been said so... That freehub is beyond manky... Why on earth did you let it get like that?
I've been blowing through the inner freehub bearings on these pretty quick, though there appears to have been a running change to the Freehub design to include an additional bearing (3x total). Anyone else had issues, worth the upgrade?
@boblo - I had no idea it was like that inside tbh. I normally tend to keep all my bearings in various parts of the bike in good condition. I quite enjoy changing bearings / rebuilding forks and droppers etc. I was surprised how minging it was.
It’s not been said so… That freehub is beyond manky… Why on earth did you let it get like that?
@superdan - presumably that’s a new version of the microspline freehub as the circlip slop must be further onboard to allow for 2 bearings to go in there.
Neither of the freehub bearings were that bad tbh - especially considering the muck in the hub. I think I’m relatively light on wheels for whatever reason - 75kgs isn’t that heavy really and I don’t put out wild amounts of power either.
Good grief, there are two versions of freehub with different end cap lengths? Just when I wasn’t enjoying being on xd because of the cassette cost I realise it might not be so bad!
I went from XD to microspline in a Pro4 and there are more than 2 versions of the end cap - there are boost / non boost versions of each. I know this because I had the wrong microspline endcap the first tube round due to a crc listing error.
There are "standard" end caps and boost adapter endcaps.
However, Hope call 125x12 12mm, and 142x12 X12.
For boost, the hub shell is wider to the freehub and end caps are the same.
What are the dimensions of the snap ring groove? Just wondering if it would take a circlip. They're often made from slightly thicker material. But 26mm is a common enough size for a circlip.
I thought this would be an end-cap rant when I saw the title.
But that freehub wins this weeks minger comp. for sure
How long had it gone unserviced? I'm surprised how bad it looks given it should be sealed, I wonder if the seal had failed.
Well I got the hub in December 2018 but it had an XD driver on it for a while. I reckon microspline went on august 2020 - so 19 months. The previous XD driver still looked almost like new - I’ve still got it in the cupboard just in case and dug it out for a look.
I reckon the green seal failed in some way - I’ve ordered a new one that should arrive today with the bearings / pawl springs
Would be nice if a circlip would fit - guess it needs to be fairly slim line to allow the inner metal tube between the bearings to fit too - but it looks like there would be enough room for a normal circlip to me.
Hope have a bad habit of using stupid c clips, the ones on their 20mm front hubs were a pita too, and the little one on the tech3 lever is never the same once you've taken it off.