I don’t know why but I have a sudden urge to play this:

mangoridebike – Member

re the hub

I’ve had one of those on my main bike (ridden at least once a week) for over 3 years with no problems what so ever.

mangoride, I must be either cack-handed but extraordinarily lucky with conventional qr shimano hubs which have always been lovely to me, or really really unlucky with the xt and slx ones I had.

Have you had to service yours? The cone/lockring on both mine were both done up ‘bastid tight’ when I got them (only found this bit out when i tried to service them!) but they ran lovely and smooth at first: both went grumbly after a few months, and despite the enormo spanner and finding a way to immobilise the ‘axle’ (ie tube) whilst i did the cones up properly (shimano service centres apparently have a nifty but expensive tool for this purpose, bit like an axle vice clamp but ‘backwards’), mine both were forever coming loose or tightening up.

I’ve still got the rumbly xt one lurking in the workshop ‘naughty step’ if you want a spare.

Could you use an expanding plug like a ‘hed doctor’ to hold the tune still?

surely you dont need to tighten the cone so much that you need any more than a grippy hand to hold the tube firm? Then on with the lock nut again as tight as you can hand held, before backing the cone into it?

so presuming its been tensioned/stressed youd STILL strip it and rebuild it ….

more chance of failure in my experiance. Changing spoke orientation and cold working of bends …

a wheel does not become harder to true due to bent spokes nor will it implode and it is not wrong …. it is just unconventional

wheel building is not an exact science its more of an art beyond the very simple assembly stage ….

i have a wheel on my fat bike thats built like an old MG midget wheel with the left hand hub flange laced to the right hand holes on the rim – still going strong and its got more holes drilled in it than a holey thing…….

Andyl, the shimano tool from what i could tell from the interwebz picture was like a hed doctor, you’d need one to fit well in the internal diameter of the ‘tube’.

Stoner, I tried that too but somehow the cone kept either loosening or tightening itself after a few rides. I think it is hard to stop the tube ‘following’ the cone as you back it off against the outer locknut and so you don’t get a good enough grip between cone and locknut. I was baffled by how this resulted in the hub tightening itself though as its a normal thread on the right hand side, the axle trying to follow the rest of the hub as it turns forward should loosen itself against the cone and locknut not tighten. One of my 2 still managed to though!

The best I managed minus a suitably sized expander wedge was to cut a 2mm wide by 3mm deep slot across the outer opening of the disc side of the ‘tube’axle, and then balance it on an old steel ruler held in a vice. There was plenty of ‘tube’ left to butt up against the inside of the fork dropout to secure the hub, and you could get the tube to stay still whilst you adjusted the cones.