[Closed] Stiff Maxle

Is it a Maxle Lite? I have one on my Reba and it's quite a lot stiffer than my mates original Maxle on his Pikes.

I've just lived with it but if there is an answer on here I will be interested to know what it is.

Yes. It's a lite and it's a lot stiffer than the maxle on my Pikes ....

It's so stiff that I can hardly thread it in.

I had this with some wotans in fact the axle wouldn't even fit in. Turned out to be the paint was too thick on the little lip where the hub sits. I scraped the paint off and after that it was fine. The maxle fitted fine without the wheel on and it fitted through the hub fine away from the fork that's what made me think there was something on the fork that meant the hub wasn't sitting correctly.

I had this with some wotans in fact the axle wouldn't even fit in. Turned out to be the paint was too thick on the little lip where the hub sits. I scraped the paint off and after that it was fine. The maxle fitted fine without the wheel on and it fitted through the hub fine away from the fork that's what made me think there was something on the fork that meant the hub wasn't sitting correctly.

Interesting thought. I had tried the Maxle Lite in the fork without the wheel but not through the wheel out of the fork. I'll try that tonight and see if its the paint thing as you say.

Any joy?

Mine's been bad lateley on my rebas, My old revs were fine but the reba maxle is really stiff. I had plenty of grease at the threaded end but after having a good look last night it seems like it's the "hourglass" shaped bit at the lever end that was causing the problem. It has some scoring where it looks like grit had become trapped. Gave both the fork dropout and the hourglass bit a good clean and a smear of grease and it's improved considerably.

Didn't get a chance to look at it this weekend. Will try to get a look tonight and report back then.

so the maxle goes into the fork alone ok, put it thru the wheel and it catches a bit but nothing like it does when putting maxle thru fork and wheel together.

i've noticed that i've had to almost pull the fork legs apart by a mm or two to get the wheel in. is this normal? I think it might be the cause of the issue.

fork is 2010 reba team 120, hub is hope pro ii.

Mine can be a bit of a pain getting in and out occasionally, hope pro 2 and rs revelations. Give it a clean and put a bit of grease on and it works nicely after. I think its because I run tubeless so never have to take the wheel out, and it just gets a bit stuck over time.

My fork and wheel are brand new.

Tried the maxle from the pike and it has the same problem with the Revelations and the hub.

Not tried removing any paint as yet, but I believe that there is an alignment issue.

I think I'll ask Hope....

bludgeon, it sounds like we both have similar issues. mine too has been stiff from brand new.

i've cleaned and greased everything and i've still got the problem.

get them copperslipped. the bearings are usually the weak point as even if there is a tiny amount of corrosion on the bore of the bearing then it'll bind.
the other reason that they stick is the sticky drawer principle. from my old engineering lecturer a the hole a shaft slides in into should be at least 1.5 times the diameter deep. so if the shaft is 20mm then the hole it slides through should be 30mm. this stops it binding (sticky drawer) when you pull it out.
poor design IMO.....

the hole a shaft slides in into should be at least 1.5 times the diameter deep. so if the shaft is 20mm then the hole it slides through should be 30mm.

i might be getting what you're saying wrong but surely the axle of a front hub is longer then 30mm. From memory the axle spacing on the vast majority of bikes is 110mm therefore longer than your required 30mm to stop it sticking.

Or are you saying the hole needs to be more than 30mm in diameter? but surely that would just result in a floppy front wheel. Fine for drawers but not for hubs.

Had exactly the same problem my 2011 FSR Expert 29er (Rebas and DT Swiss hubs). Really difficult to remove.

I ended up buying a new maxle-lite axle. Works much better now.

i had this on my RS sektors.

i took some wet and dry, wrapped around a little maglight, to the inside of the 20mm pro2 adapters. fixed it right up 🙂

swoosh, you're right. you got it wrong! 😉
the hole should be fractions of a millimetre bigger than the axle in diameter. it is the depth of the hole or the thickness of the dropout that should be 1.5 the diameter of the shaft. so if you put a rule into the hole and measured it's depth ideally it should be 30 or more for a 20mm axle.

oh right so the 30mm should be the width of the hole in the fork leg not the whole axle? Gotchya.