How To Replace Bike Wheel Hub Bearings

i'ma show you had overhaul the hub on a rear wheel this hub has like a ton of play and if there the axle moves back and forth so it could be that the the bearings in there are just really worn out it could be just need to be adjusted but I'm just gonna overhaul the thing while I'm at it I'm gonna start off by removing the skewer don't lose the spring and I usually like to just put these together put these off to the side so I don't not lose the springs just like that next we're going to want to remove the freewheel and so I have a freewheel remover tool so depending on the type of freewheel you have is the type of tool you're going to need so slide that on and I have a crystal wrench here and then when we do is turn this counterclockwise and if it's been on there for a while it could be extremely tight and this one is so let's slide my cheater bar on here and hopefully get this thing to to move here got it okay once you get it broken loose then it's jelly pretty easy just go ahead and just turn the tool counterclockwise till the freewheel comes off like that before taking everything apart you want to go ahead and take note of how far the axle extends past this lock nut here you see it looks like 3 twentieths of an inch on that side and about 2/10 of an inch on this side actually maybe 2 there more than 2/10 of an inch on this side this side seems to have more axle sticking out than the other side you can see how much play there is in this there shouldn't be that much play in there now it doesn't matter which side you start on but you do want to keep track of the order of the parts that they come on that you know that are on the the actual here on the rear wheel especially the spacers are not symmetrical on each side you can have longer spacers on one side shorter spacers on the other front we yellow jelly symmetrical but on the back wheel you need to pay a lot more attention to the order of the parts so what I use is a cone wrench down here on the cone of the 15 millimeter that's that's there and I can already tell this cone is loose down there that's probably part of the problem so that's not going to work so I'm gonna go ahead and hold the other lock nut on the other side for the crescent wrench down here and then loosen this lock nut up here and it actually looks like it's already perfect partly loose here so I'm go ahead and remove this guy okay I have a lock nut I have a spacer and here's the cone so I'll go ahead and remove the cone here there and there's all the ball bearings and I want to keep track of how many ball bearings are on each side so I'm you just pull these out with a magnet here just get them out there like that so there's three four five six seven eight nine ball bearings on this side so there's likely nine ball bearings on the other side as well let's go ahead and put those aside and then I can go ahead pick this up pull the axle out flip the wheel over be careful not to lose any ball bearings a couple ball bearings I've already fallen out down there there's two down there five six seven eight nine so there's nine ball bearings on this side as well that's actually pretty common on rear wheels okay and this is the order of the parts so there was the lock nut the spacer and the cone and here's the axle and this was on the drive side so the longer spacer went on the drive side so we can keep track of that and now I need to pull this side apart so I go ahead and put a cone wrench on the cone there and loosen this lock nut here and looks like the two lock nuts are identical there's a spacer so the shorter spacer goes on the non-drive side and I go ahead and pull the cone off here and then the axle itself may not be completely symmetrical either so it looks like a there's like complete threading here no snow threading there's a little bit of threading here and then there's more threading over on this side so this a little bit of threading here this was on the non-drive side so I want to remember that when I put it back together I have a jar paint thinner right here that I'm use dust all the parts in and that will help clean all the old grease and dirt off the parts and the axle I can kind of stir around in there and just kind of wipe that off as best I can okay I pulled all the parts out of the paint thinner and then just wipe them off and now they're all nice and clean here I still want to clean out the races in the wheel so just take a rag with some paint thinner on there and I can just wipe these out and there's wipe out all the old dirty grease out of there like that give them all nice and clean flip the wheel over to the other side get this side as well and you want to try to dry out all the paint thinner in there as that won't be good for the grease when we repack the races now check the races for any damage any little Dinks in there any cracks that one looks good and that one looks good and then you also want to check the races on the cones here and look for any major damage on those and those look good now we'll get ready to put this thing back together here these are the bearings they pulled out of the wheel and so I've got a gauge here from Park Tool and it's got like little holes in here for different sizes of bearings so I just take the the bearing and try to drop it into one of the holes and it doesn't go through the hole for the 7/32 inch bear and so it goes nice and cleanly through the quarter-inch hole there so these are quarter-inch bearings and I have a bag full of quarter-inch bearings right here or you just go to your local bike shop and buy go ahead and get 9 for each side or you know you know getting like an one or two extra just in case you lose one I want to pack the race with grease I got my little grease gun here and I'll just go ahead and run some grease around the race here I'm using marine grease here now I just want to take one bearing at a time and drop it in the race and the grease will hold it in place and there's my 9 bearings I got a nice little circle around in there and just make sure they're pressed down into the grease like that and then they'll stay there so go ahead and flip the wheel over put grease down in the race and then insert the bearings down into the grease again and there I have 9 bearings down into the grease now I'm ready to start putting the axle back together again I have the parts laid out here again so I have the axle here here's a little bit of threaded part that was on the non-drive side I have the long spacer that was on the drive side so I'm going to do is take the cone and screw that down onto the axles to begin with just screw away the heck down there take the spacer and then take the lock nut and we're going to go ahead and screw this on I want about 2/10 of an inch of axle going out past the lock nut there if I measure that like that now it's about right then what I can do is take the cone and then tighten that back out into the lock nut like that then using my cone wrench like that and my crescent wrench I'll go ahead and tighten that that's nice and solid there now the wheel here and this is the drive side because there's where the freewheel screwed on so I'll go ahead and pass the axle down through there and then we go ahead and flip this over like this okay now I just go ahead and screw the cone on to this side screw it down screw it down till it's finger tight against the bearings down there slide your spacer on they go ahead and slide the lock nut on here okay and this is where it gets tricky because you want you want the cone loose enough that the wheel will spin with no binding but tight enough that you're not gonna get play in the hub there so I've got this tightened finger tight against the bearings what I'm gonna do is hold the cone then hold the lock nut to tighten the lock nut down and then just kind of tighten these and then we'll feel how they how they go and you want to turn smoothly no binding but you don't really want any play in the hub there and this actually feels pretty good so what I'm going to do is tighten this the rest of the way and then I'll double check it again so tighten it nice and tight and then double-check it again you want to turn nice and smoothly and you don't want play in the hub there so go ahead and put the wheel back over now I'm ready to put the freewheel back on so I'll just go ahead and slide this on and turn it on like that and I put the tool back on there and just tighten down a little bit I don't need to type it on super hard because riding it we'll go ahead and tie it on now just put the skewer back on and I'm done and that is how you overhaul the hub on a rear wheel hope that helps

Channel: RJ The Bike Guy

Views: 2,111,003

Keywords: Bikes, Bicycle Wheel (Invention), Bicycle (Sports Equipment), hub, maintenance, grease, bearings

Id: _axwV6sfaAs

Length: 14min 47sec (887 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 07 2014