Rohloff skipping problem [SOLVED] surprisingly easily!

Have been having increasing skipping of gears during pedalling – similar feeling to how derailleurs can skip. Happening in every gear and riding home today was the last straw. Doing my head in!

Did a bit of reading and heard about replacing the pawl springs. From a look at some disassembly posts I thought these were for the main axle through the hub – i.e. big job with lots of springs and rollers to lose.

Anyway, I’m lucky enough that my wife’s touring bike also has a Rolloff so I began to take the torsion arm off of it and get it ready to go on my bike. As I took off the external gearbox bit I noticed there were two small springs in the end, underneath the plate held on by 5 t20 torx bolts. These were exactly the same springs as the spares I had so figured they were worth changing.

Put my wife’s hub back together, opened the side of mine up, took out the springs. Looked fine and seemed to have same springiness as the new ones but swapped anyway. Put it back together and after a long climb back up to the house couldn’t make the thing skip in any gear with any RPM – wayhay! In fact the hub feels more direct than it has in ages.

So aside from 5 oil changes and two sprockets (and loads of chains) the hub has cost me £2.99 to maintain since I bought it secondhand off here in 2011. Fan-Bloody-tastic !!! It’s done a few massive tours in far away mountains and lots of going to work and gets no love at all.

Hopefully this will be helpful to someone at some point as I couldn’t find any guidance and most threads say “send it back to Rolloff” etc. Especially the pedants who send it back as soon as there is a tiny bit of bearing play. Mine has had that since I got it and its not got worse and doesn’t seem to cause an issue.

Will try to add photos in a bit but internet painfully slow.

Like. thanks

Looking forward to the pictures as I am getting the annoying skip on my hub.

This is what we’re dealing with:

and the hub gets no love at all:

Took off the gearbox and torsion bit and underneath here:

I changed the springs which are at 3 o’clock and 9 o’clock in this image:

The little blighters I took out:

There is no timing of gears associated with the gearbox so this is a low risk bit of maintenance. Just be careful not to damage the paper gasket in there.

I have no idea what these springs do. They might help engage drive rings within the hub or it might just be holding the indexing of each gear. I dunno but its solved my issue.

Bump for the morning crew

I think thats part of the indexing

Are these run without lube?

I might look at changing mine. 11 years of service from it now, 2 years commuting on the road and 9 off road and yours teacake looks clean compared to how mine spends most of it’s life. An annual oil change and so far it’s on it’s 3rd chain and sprocket and second chainring. I did get the hub shell bearings replaced by Rohloff free of charge as it was going back to them to be upgraded for use with disk brakes. I have had the occasional skip since then, I’d put it down to me not doing a brilliant job with fitting the new cables and the external box but it might well be the springs are starting to wear.

Well, annoyingly it still skips in the highest gear! I may crack it open to have a look but will first change the oil. Going to have to use my wife’s wheel after all.

If I do open it up I’ll post some updates here so you don’t make the same mistakes 😉

sq225917 – the Rohloff has about 12ml of oil inside them. You change the oil by first draining what will freely come out. Then add in a low viscosity cleaning oil. Ride around a bit changing gears to get all the crap out of the insides. Drain that out. Then add 25ml fresh oil (but I only add half that).

Thanks for that.
My Rohly skips under low-load. Under power, it obviously engages ok, but lower its a problem. The easy solution is to ride harder, which is fine in a way, but no so good if out for a gentle pootle with the family.
I’ll have a look at this later. Could be the solution…

Edit: I do like the way you experimented on your wife’s bike first. 😉

So this morning I whipped the cover plate off and checked the pawl springs. They were both there,I gave them a bit of a stretch and threw it all back together. No slipping on a five minute test ride – Hooray!
BUT – there was no sign of a paper gasket – may have been previously lost or just disintigrated- I have had the hub at least 10 years.
Without the gasket will I die?

Almost certainly.

Can’t say when though.

These are the paper gaskets.

https://www.sjscycles.co.uk/hub-spares/rohloff-paper-gasket-kit-for-axle-ring-for-speedhub-50014-8710/

cheers Teacake, suppose I should get them (where does the little one go?)
I’ll get some pawl springs too – may as well splash out 🙂

The big one is quite obvious as it lines up with the other holes. The smaller one goes on the end of the shaft which has the circlip on it. Mine is pretty tatty so I’m replacing too. Going to change the oil when I get a chance and see if that makes any difference. If that doesn’t fit it, then its crack it open time!