How do you stop the cassette biting into the freehub body?

Hello,

As the title really – I’m running an xt cassette of the style that has a central carrier for the largest 4 cogs:

However, after approx 3 months use the largest of the individual cogs have cut all the way through the splines on the freehub on my sun ringle hub.

I’ve had this problem many times before, but I’ve usually blamed it on cheap cassettes. However at £70 a pop for the sun freehub I want to avoid doing the same thing to the new one in a few months time.

Does anyone have any techniques to stop the cassette biting into the freehub body?

Cheers,
Lawrence

When cassette is worn remove and file the grooves away.

I’ve found SRAM better but it still happens.

Shimano often have steel feehub bodies which helps stop it. Hope do steel as an option, too.

Some now come with one or two ‘splines’ on the hub in steel to stop it happening too.

File it down and glue a thick metal staple in there. There are pics on the weight weenies forum somewhere.

and make sure you are torquing up the lock ring enough as if it’s just a little bit lose it will be allowed to slip and fret.

Not too tight that you strip the thread in the hub though!

It’s one reason I like American Classic freehubs – a few of the splines have steel inserts to stop this happening.

Thanks for the swift replies.

There’s no steel freehub option for my hub that I’m aware of, and I’d like to avoid the extra weight anyway.

I always file down any grooves when I remove the cassette, but in approx 3 months the cogs have cut all the way through, so it’s beyond saving by that means now.

Fixing some kind of reinforced ridge (or several) on to the freehub body is an interesting idea though. I’ve ordered a new one so I may well experiment with this idea on the old freehub.

You’ve gone right through the splines? Are you really heavy? Not being insulting, genuinely curious, that’s very unusual.

Otherwise I’d say it’s not tight enough.

Otherwise I’d say it’s not tight enough.

Or a very shit freehub body

cutting all the way through must mean it’s not been tight enough – they wouldn’t be able to rotate so much if it was torqued up.

Most wheels do that in my experience, I have had a few that didn´t but not many. When I remove the cassette I just lightly run a file over the marks and it keeps on top of it. I asked Hope about it and they were as good as ever, they just said yup it happens and the offered to change the body for a steel one if I wanted. It was often a topic of conversation on our holidays so I did a video to show how I remove the cassette, using no special tools in the purest ghetto fashion!
Remove stuck cassette[/url]

To be honest it´s not that interesting but thought it was worth a post. I really like the steel staple idea but that American classic hub is such an elegant solution. You only need one, or two steel inserts and it´s sorted I guess.

I’m not very heavy (10.5 stone). I did manage to do the same thing to an alloy superstar freehub, but I assumed that it perhaps wasn’t the best quality material (replaced it with a steel one) and it was a cheaper cassette (individual cogs pinned together type style).

To be honest I usually tighten the locking bolt to above the correct torque – I had used a torque wrench this time but was paranoid it wasn’t holding it firm enough, so had given it a bit more.

I think the problem is that the freehub bodies are made of soft alloy – that american classic solution is rather nice, but I don’t really want to change my hub, just make this one last a bit longer! I accept that it’s always going to happen to a degree, but I think it’s pretty poor that these parts can’t cope with their intended use (and that they charge you £70 to replace the item that I’d argue isn’t really fit for purpose). Excuse the mini rant!

Cheers.

I’m not very heavy (10.5 stone). I did manage to do the same thing to an alloy superstar freehub, but I assumed that it perhaps wasn’t the best quality material (replaced it with a steel one) and it was a cheaper cassette (individual cogs pinned together type style).

To be honest I usually tighten the locking bolt to above the correct torque – I had used a torque wrench this time but was paranoid it wasn’t holding it firm enough, so had given it a bit more.

I think the problem is that the freehub bodies are made of soft alloy – that american classic solution is rather nice, but I don’t really want to change my hub, just make this one last a bit longer! I accept that it’s always going to happen to a degree, but I think it’s pretty poor that these parts can’t cope with their intended use (and that they charge you £70 to replace the item that I’d argue isn’t really fit for purpose). Excuse the mini rant!

Mmmm, yes they are soft, but you must be doing something wrong, as that’s incredibly unusual to actually go right through the splines, and to have done it on two separate hubs…

They will always bite in a bit on alloy freehubs (unless you do something to reinforce the freehub body like AMC), but it will generally only be slight.

My hope bulb freehub is years old and has had all sorts of cassettes with barely any wear, I think yours must be a bit cheese.

Can we see pics?

It isn’t an 11 speed freehub is it? They are deeper and the cassette wouldn’t be tight. Some freehubs need a spacer to maintain the correct depth, so it can tighten properly.

Superstar don’t do an 11 speed freehub do they? Interesting thought though, but it should be very obvious if that were the case.

joolsburger – Member

My hope bulb freehub is years old and has had all sorts of cassettes with barely any wear, I think yours must be a bit cheese.

The hope bulb had a steel or ti freehub.

Does sound odd, I’m heavier than you and on the road bike (where I tend to push a big gear up hills) I’ve never got close to cutting right through one of the splines.

All the way through?! Seriously? I have broken just about everything there is to break on a bike. I’m between 12 and 14 stone and have a huge backpack ontop of that. I ride almost every day and almost all day up and down big hills.ive nev got through more than 25%. That’s on the hope hub. Something’s not right I think. Either you have mental legs and are pushing big gears all the time, the product is rubbish or you have fitted it wrong somehow. Definitely pictures!

It’s the larger sprockets that will exert more pressure on the freehub body rather than bigger gears, most force is granny ring and largest sprocket, hence you can get up steeper hills in that gear

Hope Bulb has a ti freehub, mine is 9 years old now and still immaculate, 6 month old ProII on the other hand…

The hub in question is the one fitted to the Sun Ringle Charger Pro wheelset.

The two cogs that have cut through are the largest two sprockets not on the central carrier – ie the two lowest gears mounted as individual cogs.

No photo for the moment I’m afraid – I have a crap one on my phone but not sure how to get it visible here without wasting too much work time…

I’m fully open to the fact I’m doing something wrong, but I’m not really sure what it could be. I was assuming it was the soft material that was the problem, and thus looking for ways to lengthen the life of the freehub, but I’m surprised to hear other people haven’t done similar.

I’d suggest (as others have) the cassette isn’t tight enough.

As the owner of a Sun Ringle wheelset and from my own misadventures with a spiderless cassette (never again), I’d take a guess that the alloy freehub isn’t made of cheese, it’s more like ghee.

When the time comes, inevitably, I’ll either fork out for the cro mo freehub or get something from another brand.

I’m no expert, and I might have also got the wrong end of the stick, but…

Surely any compressive force from the lockring would be outweighed by the twisting force through the sprocket from the chain? Otherwise you wouldn’t need the splines, other than to align the shifting ramps?

The lock ring clamps all the parts of the cassette together. So the whole thing acts as a single unit.

What people think is happening is that individual cogs are able to move and that’s what’s causing the damage.

have used Hope Pro II hubs for a number of years on my mountain bikes and always experienced this issue to some small degree, despite using the recommend Shimano XT or SRAM PG-990 cassettes with the “spider style” cog carriers, setting the lockring to correct torque and smearing Shimano anti-seize on the splines before mounting the cassette

it was just one of those things, and the hubs worked excellently in every other respect. I’d only remove the cassette once worn out (once a season) so no big deal

when it came to road wheels for my first road build of course I went with Hope hubs, I got the Pro III hubs on Mavic Open Pro rims

I was quite shocked how difficult it was to remove the Shimano 105 cassette after about 7 months of use, this is what I found (you can see where I have cleaned it up with a file):

had to remove the cassette using a flat blade screwdriver and hammer to ‘rotate’ the cogs off the body.

returned the body to Hope who replaced it FOC with no questions asked.

I’m not a big guy or a power house on the road bike, more of an an endurance rider who enjoys hill climbs, so it was not a case of abusing the drivetrain with weight or big legs!

would like to see Hope move to using a steel “leading strip” on their bodies which would surely add very little weight, perhaps some extra cost but definitely make their bodies more durable 🙂

What people think is happening is that individual cogs are able to move and that’s what’s causing the damage.

That’s certainly what I think. otherwise, why would anyone recommend using an allloy carrier? There wouldn’t be any point if the clamping force from the lock ring meant your pedalling force was uniformally spread over all the sprockets.

And all of the damaged freehub pictures we see would have uniform indents from each of the sprockets, rather than how they actually are, like eshershore’s above, with the sprockets experiencing the most force indenting furthest.

Some are definitely better than others- DT Swiss last much better than Hope frinstance. So no trouble believing others could be worse still… Hope with a steel freehub ends up pretty weighty, there are light-ish steel freehubs though, Fulcrum frinstance do lots of steel models, Mavic and Formula too (though, I don’t know if you can buy the nice formulas aftermarket) American Classic’s idea is ace.

The solution for me is a file, then some chemical metal if it’s bad, then a new freehub eventually. Hope seem conflicted, they say it’s only cosmetic but will replace it.