The 11spd cassette on my sons bike, only a few months old, started making noise during a ride. A quick fiddle and I found the first five smallest gears moved independently of the larger ones. We were a few miles away from anywhere so had to keep riding.
Once home, I took the cassette apart to check for any obvious signs of damage to it or the spindle? they slide on to. Everything looked fine to my untrained eye. Once I put it all back together, I noticed a bit of play between the cassette and the spindle. Is this normal?
Is that just the little bit of float you get between the freehub and hub body, something that's removed when you put in the frame and insert the axle?
Missing spacer?
Is it an 11 speed hub ? If so do you have the spacer with the 11 speed MTB cassette.
If it's the wide range 11spd cassette (11-51), there is a known issue with the rivets holding the cogs onto the spider coming loose.
I get terribly confused with rear cassettes when taking about shifting up/down, bigger/smaller as I am an eejit, but this affects the biggest cogs (lowest gears) which I think it what you are describing.
HTH, warranty job if it is that.
Do shimano make 11speed 11-51?
I thought 11-46 was the max. I’ve got one of these.
11speed specific hubs is a road thing isn’t it? MTB hg hubs will work with 9,10,11 speed cassettes interchangeably. Something to do with bigger large sprockets clearing the spokes but needing more room on a road cassette?
If it was working without wobble and it started to wobble when riding then something has gone wrong. If it’s only wobbly after taking to bits and reassembly then it’s maybe put together wrong
Play between cassette and spindle (free hub)… is that back and forth or side to side. Hard to work out what the problem is
@docrobster I was surprised too, but they do. A relatively common fault is the rivets coming loose: https://www.reddit.com/r/MTB/comments/jvwtqn/shimano_deore_11_speed_1151_loose_anyone_else_had/
EDIT: and my riding buddy had one that developed this issue too - hence how both cassette, and warranty requirements, cam not my attention 🙂
No way. I rode with a guide complaining that some of his fleet of these were doing this only last week (and to be fair, they were!). Wish I'd known then it could be a warranty issue..
Oh thanks that’s interesting. I just ordered a sunrace 11-50 as it happens. Looks like the shimano is a chunk heavier and unavailable though so…
Better gaps on the shimano, only 6t jump between 10 and 11 compared to 8 on the sunrace. But that is still better than 9t jump on the 11-46 slx
My son's lockring loosens off - giving the problem described by the OP.
Really tighten it up and the problems goes away.
(On a 12-spd cassette).
Shimano do make 11speed 11-51.
Deore only - available from Bikester.
Needs a long-arm derailleur too: Shimano Deore RD-M5100 or equivalent.
Yeah, known issue.
My first one did it & was related under warranty. Second one is solid. A mate just glued his up somehow.
They ain't light, but they're cheap with a good spread for the range.
Yep I had a deore 11spd 11-51 get loose rivets, had me puzzled for a while.
The first batch of these had the rivets fail holding the top cogs on, leading to a terrible rattle and poor shifting.
Send it back to madison via wherever you bought it from and they will replace whenever they have stock.
Mine came via aliexpress so I just sent it to madison direct addressed to the warranty department and crossed my fingers, they rang me and said they would send a new one out to my local bike shop for me to pick up.
No idea why they couldn't just send it to me.
Recently this happened to me on two bikes , sent back to Madison and they replaced under warranty , i sold them and moved back to Xt .
Have an issue with mine where it rocks and feels like it needs a spacer. Using a 0.5mm one doesn't work and a 1.0mm spacer means I cant get the lock ring to thread onto the freehub. Pretty sure its not to do with rivets as I think it was working fine on my Hunt Xc wheels but doesn't when I tried putting it on the Boardman wheels the bike came with.
Got it as I wanted a better spread of gears verses the 11-46 slx whos non steel gears wore mega quick and I was ok with the weight penalty.
Do shimano make 11speed 11-51?
Yep and it works with gravel mechs too
https://ukgravelco.com/2020/06/18/shimano-deore-cs-m5100-cassette/
Have an issue with mine where it rocks and feels like it needs a spacer. Using a 0.5mm one doesn’t work and a 1.0mm spacer means I cant get the lock ring to thread onto the freehub. Pretty sure its not to do with rivets as I think it was working fine on my Hunt Xc wheels but doesn’t when I tried putting it on the Boardman wheels the bike came with.
Got it as I wanted a better spread of gears verses the 11-46 slx whos non steel gears wore mega quick and I was ok with the weight penalty.
I was convinced this is what was up with mine too, cranked that lockring down so tight I broke a tooth getting it off again! But it was the rivets after all. Generally it only started making a noise 30mins into a ride for some reason.
I bought a sunrace csmx8 11-51t 11 spd cassette while waiting for the covid delayed stock of deore cassettes to replace, when I got my replacement I have just left the sunrace on. It lighter than the deore but doesn't shift as well.
Thanks for all the replies and sorry for not posting until now.
Just to confirm, it’s an 11sp, 11-51t Shimano Deore cassette.
The larger gears that are riveted to the spider weren’t the issue. It was the smaller gears that moved because the lock ring wasn’t tight enough. It’s supposed to be torqued to 40nm but I don’t have a wrench that goes that high. I used a very large adjustable spanner with descent force to stop them moving.
Once that was all sorted it was the play between the energy cassette and the rest of the wheel. It just didn’t feel right to me.
I’ll drop the chain later and see if there’s still any movement whilst it’s attached to the bike to see if having the axle in makes a difference.
Just checked and there’s still a slight amount of play when the wheels is on the bike. I checked another bike and there’s no movement at all. Could the loose locking nut have damaged the free hub? I couldn’t see any visible damage.