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Episode: 2110
Title: HPR2110: Overhauling a Bicycle Hub
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr2110/hpr2110.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-18 14:26:30
---
This is HPR episode 2,110 entitled, Overhauling a Bicycle Herb.
It is hosted by John Kulp and is about 45 minutes long.
The summary is, listen and enjoy an overhaul the rear herb of my 1985 Swin.
This episode of HPR is brought to you by AnanasThost.com.
Get 15% discount on all shared hosting with the offer code HPR15.
That's HPR15.
Better web hosting that's honest and fair at AnanasThost.com.
Hey everybody, this is John Kulp and I'm at Louisiana doing another of my maintenance episodes.
Today I'm going to be overhauling the rear herb on my bicycle.
It's been a few years since I've done this and there's an annoying sound that's been happening
on my bike that may or may not be related to the hub but I'm going to overhaul the hub anyway
because it's just overdue. I think the last time I did it was when I first got this what I
ride is a 1985 Swin road bike that I got a good will for $13. I think it was $12.99 actually
so I got a penny back on that and when I got it it was completely unrideable.
Things were seized up, the chain was rusted and I overhauled both hubs, the bottom bracket,
got a new chain, put new tires and tubes, new brake cables, new brake pads. Actually I upgraded
the brakes too from the old school single pivot caliper brakes to dual pivot caliper brakes.
That was the most expensive part of the upgrade was the brakes. I think I paid 25 bucks a piece
for those. These are long-reach dual pivot caliper brakes and they're really nice.
Well to me they're really nice and I also changed out the handlebars in this thing. It had
old school like racing drop handlebars which made you bend over really low to ride the thing
and I'm too old to be doing that so one day when I saw that a neighbor of mine had thrown out
a boys BMX bike, I took it and removed the handlebars and the stem and put them on my bikes and
now I can sit pretty much upright while I'm riding the bike and it's much more comfortable for me.
So anyhow the first thing I have to do is take the wheel off.
I've got most of my tools out here for this. I can never remember what the socket size is for this.
It's bigger than that. What was on there was 14 so let's try 15. Let's see if that does it.
Yep 15 it is. Okay one is loose and two is loose.
I've got on my nastiest old pair of cargo pants and a t-shirt I don't care about.
One of the first things you need to do when you're about to work on something like this is get
nasty clothes on so that you can get them all messy and not upset anybody.
Do I want to put on maybe not yet? Yeah actually well I'm going to put on my latex gloves also
to keep my hands as clean as I can keep them because there's a lot of grease and grime involved in
this job. For those of you who are not familiar and overhaul of a hub what that means is that you
disassemble the hub, clean out all the old grease, clean the bearings or just throw them away
and then replace them with either cleaned or new bearings and then repack it all with new grease
and then you're all set to go. I've done this maybe a dozen times I don't really know how many times
but oops I've got to release the brake over here so that the wheel can get past it
and then pull the wheel up
and out. There we go.
Okay I have the wheel.
What I'm going to do I have my magnetic parts bowled down here on the floor I'm going to put
washers and nuts in there so they don't get lost.
Taking off the axle nuts and washer put them in the bowl on the other side I've got
a trailer hitch in lieu of a straight washer and with the trailer hitch I can trail like a
haul a bike trailer behind the bike. I don't do that much anymore. I used to do it with my son
every day. I used to take him to the school in it every day but that's been many years now since
we've done that 10 years ago and with a different bike. This actually this hub feels pretty good.
I wonder if I even need it well. Sure I've made it this far and it looks like
that to do this job I'm going to need to take off the flywheel which is a job in itself that
requires a special tool the fly with the free wheel. Sorry is this the free wheel tool number one
that's free wheel five. I think I need number one for this one. The free wheel is removed
by using a special tool that has splines to go down in there and sit just so there's the one.
And then we have to do is use a wrench to turn the free wheel tool. This is one of these specialized
the free wheel tool itself is not that expensive it's maybe seven bucks but if you don't have it you
are never getting a free wheel off the bike. So it's an important tool to have if you're going to do any
kind of maintenance on the bike but what I need in addition to the tools I have here is my lead pipe
because it is really hard to get this thing off without a lot of leverage. I have a giant adjustable
wrench to fit around the one inch free wheel tool but that by itself is not enough to make it an
easy job so I have a lead pipe that I put on the handle of the wrench so I can get sufficient leverage
and loosen that thing up. So that's what we will do now. If I were really on top of things I would
probably have bought a new free wheel and chain and replace both of those at the same time.
That's something that needs to be done periodically if you if you don't change the chain often enough
then the the free wheel's teeth can get a little bit distorted in shape and so that makes it so if
you put a new chain on there it's not going to fit into the teeth properly and you'll get this
sound it's just really awful. Okay so I've got the wrench on there sliding the pipe
now I'll do this hold on to the wheel and then start pushing. There got it.
Sorry about that. That's a really soon. I think I just heard a text coming from my wife
and now my hand is all greasy. Well let's see I can probably manage without too much.
She's out shopping. May have a question for me about something.
Oh no not a text from my wife just some kind of thing from Amazon about a great offer on a e-book.
No thank you and somehow I think with all the flooding in the rain my my just shed my tool shed
has gotten like overrun with ants it's really awful and so these rags that I've gotten out to do
this job you need a lot of rags when you're doing an overhaul also the rags or when I pulled them
out all these ants when I'm running everywhere. Okay so the free wheel tool is off now what you have
to do to take the oops I need the free wheel tool still. I've loosened it but I've not taken it off
you have to keep the free wheel tool in there and keep turning it turning turning turning until the
thing comes all the way off then I'm going to use a rag to pick it up and off
because if I pick it up with just my gloved hand it's going to poke holes in this glove
these teeth are a little bit sharp okay free wheel is off there we go and now I can see the hubs
looks like there's plenty of grease down there on a bicycle grease is a good thing so I'll probably
want to put the free wheel back on I'm going to re grease it I'll clean that out and then put
new grease in there it looks like it's sufficiently greased I'd be worried if it were completely clean
because that would mean that in various rain showers and things like that that the grease had
gotten washed away you don't want the grease to get washed away because then you'll start grinding
up your bearings and that's not good all right so I'll wipe the threads where the free wheel goes on
and you know these hubs are probably not super duper in need of an overhaul but this is the kind of
thing that's never a bad thing to do I don't think some of the modern hubs well I don't know
about so much about hubs I know like this is a job that I had to do in the bottom bracket too which
is where the the axle for the pedals goes through and in more modern bikes that will be a self-contained
unit where you don't overhaul it you just replace it with a like a pre greased cartridge but this
old bike has lots of little parts now I'm not sure whether when I open up this hub all the ball
bearings are just going to fall out and run everywhere or whether they're in these little retainer
cages I kind of hope that they're in the little cages because that will make it easier to find them
because they just pop off in one little unit and a couple little balls might fall out but
if the bearings are just loose which is fine really I mean there's no problem with them being
loose it's just that when you take the hub out you've got to be careful that they don't just go
everywhere and if they've got enough grease then they shouldn't just like go shooting off across
everywhere but if the grease has gotten a little bit dry and cracked and uh whereas just been
washed away then the ball bearings are level to get everywhere all right so it's ready now
to disassemble and what I need is a cone wrench I don't know what size I'm going to guesstimate
15 millimeters there's a 15
see you fit
all right looks like a one millimeter bigger do I have a 16 inch there's a 16 it's not one of my
nice ones we've got some nice park tool cone wrenches with the the blue rubber on the handles
and uh I wish that would feel but it looks like well that's too big 15 has to be right
is it yeah okay 15 is right looks like maybe I'll try the other side
you can't see here well the sun is coming in in a funny angle right now
there's one side of the cone the cone is the part that kind of screws on on one side of the hub
and holds the bearings in there and the cup is the other side all right looks like that's
pretty much on there I'm gonna in the way you have to undo it you got to hold the cone still
with a cone wrench the cone wrench is a special kind of wrench it's very very thin to fit
into this very thin little slot a regular box end wrench or adjustable wrench is probably not
going to work and you don't have to apply a lot of pressure to get it open because
this is not one of those places where you really crank it down what you have to do is get a
perfect balance between tightness and looseness it needs to be tight enough where the where the hub
doesn't rattle all around but it needs to be loose enough where the bearings can still roll freely
okay so what I'm doing now is is threading off the nut that holds that goes up against the
washer and the cone keeping everything nice and still on the other side
okay the nut is off put that down on my t-shirt
I've got a yucky old white t-shirt down here to catch things and now time to undo the cone
looks like it's a little bit stuck
okay now here comes the cone now this is where all bearings could start going everywhere
because I'm loosening the cone
and it looks like these ball bearings are in a retainer so that'll make it a little bit easier
I'm still going to be careful
well it looks like my neighbor is knocking out his welcome hat over there to get all the dust off
but you know that's why you hear a banging in the background
that cone is nearly off I'll only take the cone all the way off on one side of this
because once this is off then the entire assembly will go back through the wheel and allow me to
take it off I wish I had a workbench to do this one workbench in my shed is completely messy
okay now I'm going to gently allow the cone on the other side to come out
and the bearing retainer looks like it's still nice and greasy in there
and there it goes okay so I've got ball bearings are out if I didn't have completely messy
hands I'd be taking pictures right now as you can see but I've got the axle the rear wheel axle
out in my left hand and with my right I'm gently pulling off the bearing cage that was on the left
side of the wheel the axle is very greasy which is a good sign some of the grease is getting a
little bit hard which is not what you want you want the grease to be nice and and well greasy
let's see I wonder if I want to try to clean out these bearings I brought a glass jar out here
in some brake cleaner I think I will try to try to clean them off I put this in the jar and then
take out the bearings on the other side I'll use the axle to kind of pry it a little bit
the bearings did not just pop out of the other side they're still kind of stuck in there with
but I got them now and those are both in the jar what I'm going to do is wipe all the grease off the
axle the races and the cones get everything super shiny and clean and and then re grease everything
clean the bearings out and pack more grease in those and then put it all back together
I use a super yucky rag to get the worst of it off one that's seen this job a few times before
what you look for when you get it clean is pitting like if there's one spot that seems like
it's got a groove worn in it or something that could be a concern this actually looks pretty good
the axle is clean now clean off this cone
get all the old grease off of there
yeeah this is a messy job definitely want to be wearing old yucky clothes when you do this
okay that's pretty clean clean off the nut get all the grease off of that
and now get that nice and clean if I had I don't have any solvent like I would like to have
also just drop everything in there and rinse it in solvent and that would get a nice and clean
but all I've got is this brake cleaner stuff that I'm not even sure if is appropriate
for this this is the only thing I could find my my solace a mark of how long it's been since I've
done this job is that my solvent is all dried up now I'm going to wipe out the races and the race
is the part that's it's a part of the wheel and the bearings roll around inside that it's nice
and smooth you want to make it nice and shiny wipe out all that grease and do the race on the other
side
okay the races are clean now I think I will try to put some brake cleaning fluid on these bearings
break up that grease
get inside a jar and I'll hold my eyes away a bit
I'm not sure how well that's going to work
well it doesn't really be cleaning it out maybe it's just the thing
definitely want to protect your eyes and your hands you're doing anything with this brake
cleaning solvent this breaks the car
so I'm just got enough brake cleaner in there now where there's like a puddle and I'm just kind
of swishing these bearings around in it and it's turning the brake cleaner very black
oops I think some of the bearings might have just fallen out of the cage
oh maybe not all right so now I think it's time to turn pull the bearings out of the solvent
and put it down on the t-shirt
I'm using the axle to dip down in there and get yeah the bearings are pretty clean good
happy about that
I need to put a lid on that make sure I don't dump it accidentally up in the grass or something
so now I'm going to dry out the bearings a little bit get make sure the brake cleaning solvent
doesn't stay on there else it would degrade the grease
yeah it's not as perfectly clean as I would like there's still some grease in the cage there but
it's a lot better than it was
and the other one try that one out a little bit
these bearings you're supposed to inspect the bearings too for
pitting yeah man I wish I could get all that grease out of there but whatever
I don't guess it's if I had the proper solvent it would like almost immediately get all that
grease out but this this brake stuff isn't the best
however we're just going to work with what we got here okay so it's time to start greasing
and reassembling oops that's also also want to wipe out the fly with the the freewheel
get all the old grease out of there and replace it with new
yeah
okay that's pretty clean
try to get the grease out of the splines I like that word spline you guys like that
it's a great word isn't it all right freewheel is clean now well mostly let me try one more time
on that spot there now we'll start applying liberal amounts of grease to pretty much everything
get rid of stuff I don't need don't need either of you
lead pipe I won't need anymore
when you're putting the freewheel back on all you have to do is just turn it down by hand until
it's on there because it will tighten itself as soon as you start pedaling the bike it starts
tightening and it will get plenty tight that way so you don't have to do anything to tighten it
down all right so I get my container of park bicycle grease here
and start gooping out bits of it put some in the race on this side just get a big gob on your
finger and put it all around in there so that it's a good yucky coating of grease about it I'm
quarter inch thick or something you can't put too much really make sure not to under do it
after having just cleaned out all the grease want to make sure there's nice good fresh grease in there
now in the other race on the other side
try to get this done before my wife gets home from shopping I think I can
the only really tricky part about this job is the hub adjustment that's the very last thing
you do before you put the wheel back on and that is where you try to find that sweet spot between
the not being too tight and too loose if it's too loose the wheel is going to go good good good good
that's like wobble all back and forth in the hub it's too tight your wheel won't spin freely
that is the part you get to worry about the most all right so now I'm going to put
But I'll put some grease on the cone on this side, but the left cone is still attached
to the axle.
I did not undo that one.
The right cone is sitting there on the ground, so we've got a nice good layer of grease
around the cone.
We'll grease up the axle, too, what the heck.
It's okay to get grease all over the threads.
Also it helps them keep from seizing up.
In fact, you're supposed to prep the threads on most kind of repairs.
You're supposed to prep the threads with a little bit of grease so that you can easily
undo things later if necessary.
Okay, so now I'm going to take one of these sets of bearings and pack grease all down
in it.
As if grease wouldn't get there if it's on a cord because I put so much in the races
on the cones, but still, you're supposed to just really put it on there.
And then you've got to put, if you're using these cages, you've got to be sure and put
it the right way or else it's not going to roll, right?
It's hard to describe if I could show you a picture.
I would show you the right way to do it, but I'm just going to trust that you looked
at it when you put it in and we'll do it the same way going the other way.
If you're ever unsure when you're taking stuff apart, take a picture every step of the
way and that way, you'll know how it's supposed to go.
Now, I'm going to put the wheel down, face down, holding it by the axle so that everything
doesn't fall apart that I just do.
And now grease the other bearings, that's very greasy, grease is kind of fun to play with
you.
It really is very, very greasy.
Okay, and now I'm going to put that one down over the axle and let it slide down into
the race and grease the other cone.
Oh, this is messy, but messiness will ensure that your bike goes nice and smooth and fast.
If you guys find these shows boring, then it's on you to make something more interesting.
Since the queue is so low, I'm just recording like everything I do.
Okay, now I'm putting the cone on, start threading it on there.
I'll probably do this for the front wheel too, I guess, but I'm not going to keep recording
while I do that.
That even might be a little excessive for me.
Takes a while to thread this on there because it's a long way to go and it's very slippery
and greasy, so my hands keep slipping on.
That is a very greasy deal right there.
So what you'll do when you tighten it down by hand until you get to a certain point and
then you put in the washer and nut after that.
What you want to do is get the cones to the perfect adjustment and then tighten the nut
against one of the cones to keep it from moving out of adjustment.
That is the tricky bit.
Okay, it's all threaded on there.
Now, turn to wipe the excess grease off, and there's a lot of it.
I was very liberal with this grease here and for a while some grease will be oozing
out of the hub, but there's nothing to worry about there.
Okay, let me just go a little tighter, so I'm going to wiggle it back and forth and you
can hear it well after that car goes by.
I've got one hand on each end of the axle and I'm just wiggling it back and forth.
You can hear it go, chicka-chicka-chicka-chicka.
That means it's not tight enough, so I'm going to tighten a little bit more, still a little
more, and then check again, it's getting there, and now that might be a little tight.
It's hard to tell.
Okay, so now I'm going to put the washer on, and then the nut that will secure the adjustment.
I'm going to wipe off some more excess grease.
Every time I tighten a little bit more, some more grease goes right out of the hub.
This is the kind of job that a bike shop might recommend that you do this once a year,
especially if you ride in rainy conditions a lot, because the water will tend to wash out
your hubs, and what you really don't want is to have dry ball bearings in there rolling
around, because they're going to make your races get all pitted and then you might have
to replace the hub or the wheel entirely, and it'll make this grinding sound like you
got gravel in your hubs.
I haven't done this job.
I don't even know when I got this bike, but it must have been four or five years ago, and
I haven't done it since I first got it, and it still looked pretty good, so I probably
could have gone a while longer without doing it, but it's been kind of on my mind lately.
That feels pretty good.
What I'm doing now is taking one end of the axle, and just kind of twisting it back and
forth to feel it, to feel how it, if it's smooth or if it doesn't move freely enough.
Right now it feels like it moves pretty freely, and I won't get a little bit of play
when I'm pulling it back and forth, let's see.
Here's a little bit, so I'm going to tighten that cone down just a little bit more, and
now the way you have to do the adjustment, I'm going to, normally, if you get this right
on the first try, you are a much better mechanic than I am.
You put the cone wrench on the cone, you put the cone wrench on the cone, and then you
tighten the nut against it in a kind of scissors motion, you don't have to go super tight,
tight enough where it's not going to move, and then you do that, you check it, see if you
got it right.
That feels pretty good, just a barely a little bit of play, tiny, tiny bit, and now we
check to see if it's going to roll freely, I'm holding each side of the axle and I just
turned the wheel, and it's spinning slowly, I can feel a little bit of a, sorry, I mean,
you can feel in your fingers the mechanism turning, it actually feels pretty good, it's
not stopping, it's like going continuously, and if it were too tight, the wheel would
have stopped by now, so the thing is if it's too loose, I think it's about right, you
know, I might have done it on the first try, that would be pretty amazing.
I might also find that when I start riding around, that it starts making annoying clicking
sounds, and if it does that then it means, well, maybe I didn't get it right after all,
but I think it's pretty darn close, I think I'm going to live with it, I'm going to tighten
it down just a hair, I'm going to tighten the locking nut down just a little bit more,
actually it's on the other side, and then I think I'll call it down and put it back
on the bike, first I've got to put the free wheel back on to, I can't forget that, why
don't this cone wrench go on there, so it's really irritating to me, it's like the cone
wrench is the wrong side, there it goes, okay, I think that's about it, now I'm going
to check one more time, looks good, going to dab a good bit of grease inside the free wheel,
and on the threads of the free wheel, so you don't want the threads of the free wheel
to seize up, grease, grease, grease, everything, a lot of, I don't know, for a bicycle at least,
about 90% of maintenance is cleaning and then re-greasing, sometimes you've got to put
new parts or new, this or that, but, okay, I'm trying to put the free wheel back on now,
I'm going to get the free wheel tool again, so I can find the, I'm glad my neighbor's
working on his back yard and not the front right now, okay, okay, I'm putting the free
wheel on by spinning the free wheel tool clockwise, nearly on, okay, it's on, I pulled the
tool off, nice that wheel is reassembled, now, let's see, so on this side I'll have the trailer
hitch, no, so going this side, let's go on this side, yeah, and then on the other side just
a washer, and I'm not, both of which are in my magnetic parts bowl, so that they won't
go flying away, even if the bowl tips over the parts I'll stay in there, that's a really
genius thing right there, you can work on, I mean, you can put like four of your car
lug nuts in there, and then you don't have to worry about kicking it accidentally and
having the nuts go over here because they'll, they'll stay put, a little of the magnetic parts
bowl, a little pro tip there, okay, thanks kind of for the wheel back on,
and for this, so pull the chain up like that, I wonder if I remember, I don't think I remember to do
the gear shift thing, you're supposed to, to make this easier, you're supposed to put the gear
shift into its highest, so that the gear's on the smallest, sprocket, but I forgot to do that,
it will, it'll be alright, okay, the wheel is in position,
ready to tighten down,
make sure it stays straight,
I've got holding the wheel between my knees right now and looking as it's, to make sure
that the wheel is centered in between the two, one of those, the chain stays, so that the wheel is
straight, it's a difficult part to put the wheel on, it's keeping it nice and straight,
and now I need my socket wrench,
oh crap, you know what I forgot to do, I forgot to put on this little chain guard,
oh well, I'll have to take it back off, I want to dope this now, we forget something,
okay let's start this again, pull the wheel back off,
and put on, there's this thing that is supposed to keep the stuff out of the spokes,
on a lot of bikes nowadays it's plastic, but this old bike has a metal one, plastic one is probably
because it's cheaper and because it weighs less, weighs less, less, is this supposed to be on the
side of the free wheel, oh crap, you know, I'm going to take the free wheel off again,
what a dumb thing I did there, that's pretty funny, okay so now I'm going to take the free wheel off
yet again, you guys get the pleasure of hearing me mess things up, it's always funny in it,
thankfully the free wheel is not tight yet, so it would be easy to get off this time,
I say as I struggle to get it off, there it goes,
okay,
nearly all,
okay, free wheel off now, it's like the chain guard thing, okay that's in place and now I'll put the
free wheel back on and start tightening it down by hand, good, okay now everything is in place,
put that washer back on, put the oopsie,
wash your back on, axle nut back on on this side, well that one doesn't want to go, it is it,
try turning around this way, it looks like the axle threads are a little bit messed up, okay there,
take the trailer hitch on that side and the axle nut over that,
and now I'll put the wheel back on,
okay now tighten down the axle nuts again by hand,
holding the wheel between, I've got my bike turned over on its back, if I were in a professional shop
I would have a bike stand to work on but I don't have one of those, the really good bike stands
cost a lot of money and I've spent a lot on tools but not on a bike stand,
it's pretty straight now tightening them down,
tighten your gently at first so as not to knock the wheel out of alignment,
axle nuts you want to crank down, and the wheel is rolling beautifully, this is good,
and we're cranked down on this side, okay I'm going to try it out,
oh it's so exciting, I'm going to take off these nasty gloves,
I've got to forego the helmet for the moment because I'm just going to kind of cruise around
the driveway a little bit, but I will need to tuck my long pants into my socks or else the
pants will get caught in the chain, okay let's ride, my hands are so sweaty from being in those gloves,
okay well all feels perfectly normal, I'm riding in lowest gear right now,
and feels great, I don't know that it feels any better than it did before but I have the
comfort of knowing that I've put nice fresh grease in the rear hub and that it's probably good to
go for another couple of years, and at HPR episode out of it, had some fun on a Sunday morning,
always fun to take something apart, get all greasy right, and cruising back into my driveway,
I think we're considering this job done, well I hope you have enjoyed hearing me overhaul the
rear hub of my bicycle, and I will talk to you some other time on Hacker Public Radio,
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