Had a crunch on the top of the cassette so thought a clean and re-grease was in order .
Once I figured out how to get into the hub found the internals to be abit tish.
One set of bearings captured in a race , 1 Set loose . A freehub that appears to be non serviceable ( might be wrong ) and a fairly rubbish sealing arrangement.
Once I had found and cleaned all the bearings after they rolled out across the garage floor , the hub went back together OK .

Setting up the cup and cone tolerences took time , but once i mounted the cassette onto the freehub the fun really began .

Tightening the cassette tight enough to stop wobble on the freehub caused the cup and cone and axel to tighten up and no longer run free . So I can either have wobbly cogs or a free spinning axle?

Going to strip it again to see if im being a muppet ( likely ) , but with so few parts cant see where im going wrong .

shimano freehubs aren’t generally servicable, other than by soaking or injecting grease through them. I think this is a one of the xt hubs that do ahve worse bearings/freehubs than the original design tho.

How cassete tightness affects bearings I don’t understand.

Sounds like the lock nut And seal assembly is not together right and the lock rings fowling when tight .

If you have the patience of a saint and make some basic tools ( basically a large fat 2 pronged screw driver ) then shimano freehubs are servicable , did my buddys xtr one once as a replacement was 140 quid !

Need fishing wire and light grease though . Flushing through works just aswell imo and its not worth the hassle as the bearings are tiny and love to dissapear !

Rob

They are what they are….use them in mud and they need lots of maintenace..on my ones the rear cone kept coming loose,loctite cured that..my road commuter I havent touched for nearly 2 years,still running sweet.
Done a couple of freehubs on MTBs too,(Dusk till Dawn kills em quick!)dead cheap from CRC etc,sometimes cheaper to buy the hub!

Anyway,it gives you something to fiddle with doesnt it?