King Hub discussons.

[Dirt]

Oy oy oy.

We had an interesting discussion about King hubs on another thread. It was one of the many thread jackings that happen on the Eenternet. The discussion started when my king ISO hub froze up because there was water in the hub shell and I went riding when it was 7 degrees out.

I brought it home, overhauled it and all is fine. I did find that some parts were pretty worn. The bearing seals on the drive side have been removed for cleaning many times and they are worn and hanging up slightly. I've ordered a new bearing and replacement seals and a snap ring. The new bearing will make it so the hub will roll a little smoother. The replacement seals will make it so I can have a spare bearing.

Someone said that they had issues with their King hub not rolling well and that it always felt like it was hanging. From the work that I've done on them, that is usually the drive side bearing. That seal can be removed and the bearing cleaned. Getting the seal back in is a little tougher. It actually goes in easily, but it is hard to get it to run really smootly after the seal has come out.

I was talking with a friend and he mentioned that in the winter time, King recommends that you use 5wt silicone oil to lubricate the ring drive. It doesn't take a lot. The oil is thinner than ring drive oil and won't freeze up as easily.

The o-rings on the king hubs are also a source of wear. There are two on the axle, one on the outside of the drive shell and one that goes around the drive ring. There is a blue seal that is attached to the inside of the drive shell lock "nut" (if you can call it a nut). I think you have to replace that entire nut since the seal appears to be attached quite well. These rings may not look like they're very worn, but they should be replaced when you overhaul the hub. I didn't have the spare parts this time, so I didn't replace them. That just means I'll be back doing this whole process again very soon when the parts arrive.

As of now, my rear hub feels really good. I went out and played in the ice last night and it was working fine. It wasn't that cold out, but it was cold enough for water in the hub shell to freeze if there was any.

I hope that answers some questions and prompts a bit of discussion about King hubs.

Pete

[drevil]

Yeah, my rear singlespeed freehub was freezing intermittently over the weekend. I had to be careful to catch myself if it gave out while I was standing. So I should take it apart and put that silicone oil? Where do I get it? Car store? Is there a brand name I can ask for?

[Dirt]

Yeah, my rear singlespeed freehub was freezing intermittently over the weekend. I had to be careful to catch myself if it gave out while I was standing. So I should take it apart and put that silicone oil? Where do I get it? Car store? Is there a brand name I can ask for?

Mark Wallace suggested silicone shock oil. I just used ring drive and mine is fine. Usually the reason it freezes up is that there is something other than grease in there. Dirt and water will help it freeze faster.

[Snot-Rocket]

I know I'm drifting away from the path of the wheeled-warrior when I read threads like this and go- "oh yeah, I remember having these kinds of problems in the winter."

Also, used to wake up in the A.M. in weather like this and the first thing I'm thinking of is gotta get out and ride - now I'm thinking of building snow forts and sledding w/ the midgets.

Great Post - you should have took pictures and walked through this on your Blog- that would have been sweet!

Rah,

[Dirt]

When the parts come in, I will do exactly that. I was in a hurry last night because I wanted to go out and play in the ice. I went out for a nice ride this morning and I'll be heading out again soon.

As for the process... the reason the ring drive isn't engauging is because the spring in the ring drive can't push the ring back to engauge because the ring is frozen. That normally means that you've got to pull the whole ring drive and clean out the water and dirt that is in there. You might be able to just get away with pulling the drive shell out, cleaning it off, and putting a few drops of 5wt fork oil on it, then putting it back in. That may not solve the problem though. If there's water in and around the ring drive, you're pretty much screwed until you do a full tear down.

Pulling the drive shell is easy. The only tools it requires are 2 5mm hex keys and stuff to remove your cogs. Here's what you do --

1) Remove cogs and skewer
2) insert 5mm hex key in each end of the axle and loosen the axle. The non-drive side will unthread and the whole axle will come out.
3) Gently twist the drive shell in the coasting direction and pull it out. It should disengage and come right out. No parts will go flying out unless you've got some other serious problems.
4) I clean the splines on the drive shell with some citrus degreaser and a tooth brush. I've generally found that the citrus degreaser not only works well on the gunk on the splines, but it also doesn't taste too bad when I go to brush my teeth after my next meal. I usually don't suggest you try and wipe stuff out of the inside of the hub shell. Usually that just takes dirt that was on the edge of the shell and pushes it back up into the drive rings and makes things worse. Same thing with the drive shell. Don't try and clean out the needle bearing or cartdridge bearing in there because you'll only just push the grime into the bearing more and cause bigger problems.
5) once the drive shell is clean, put a few drops of ring drive grease or as mentioned above, 5wt shock oil on the spines. I wouldn't put more than 4 or 5 drops tops. You don't want to gunk stuff up.
6) re-insert the drive shell. Twist it gently in each direction a few times until the splines engage and the shell slides all the way back in.
7) there is no step 7.
8) clean the axle and re-install it.
9) Adjust the bearings and re-install your cogs and skewer.

Things are a little more complex if you have fun bolts. I haven't played with those at all. Mark said there's a special wrench that you need to reach in and free up the axle ends.

This ice stuff isn't very good for snow forts. It is a blast to ride in though.

Pete

[drevil]

Dirt and water will help it freeze faster.Why would you do that to me? :confused:

[Dirt]

I know I'm drifting away from the path of the wheeled-warrior when I read threads like this and go- "oh yeah, I remember having these kinds of problems in the winter."

Hahaha. Obviously I forgot about this stuff too. Most of my "helpful" posts come from stupid stuff that I do and how I fix them.

Pete

[Dirt]

Why would you do that to me? :confused:

I do it because I love you. It is a tough love though. :D

[Dirt]

For those who don't want to do this kind of work themselves, I'm sure there are shops around that can and will work on your king hubs. A good shop will have the tool kit. Most normal humans don't. I was on the waiting list for one last summer. King said it would be months before they'd have them. I never heard back from them.

If you can't find anyone to do the work, I'll help you with it. I don't want to cut into the profits of the shops that support MORE, so please check with them first. With my work load these days, they're probably faster than I would be anyways.

Pete

[Nick]

Yeah, my rear singlespeed freehub was freezing intermittently over the weekend. I had to be careful to catch myself if it gave out while I was standing. So I should take it apart and put that silicone oil? Where do I get it? Car store? Is there a brand name I can ask for?

It seems you've forgotten that you need to pee on your hub when it freezes up like that.

[Snot-Rocket]

It seems you've forgotten that you need to pee on your hub when it freezes up like that.

...this doesn't work unless you load up w/ a bunch of grain alcohol before you ride- otherwise you just get yellow ice choking up your hub.

[Vecsus]

Starting to wonder if I might need to break down my king hub and do some work on it. When I took my hubs in to get them laced to some 29er hoops, the guys at the shop (Bike lane) were bored so they serviced the hubs for me. Maybe I just need to ride a bunch to break them in but every since I got them back I have had a significant amount of drag. If I'm in my highest four cogs and stop pedaling the chain goes so slack that it droops down below the chainstay. With the bike in the stand I can turn the cranks backwards and make the wheel turn. Would be hard for me to bring them back to the shop to get fixed since they did it for free.

But like I said, maybe I just need to ride the piss out of them to loosen them back up.

[DaveG]

Starting to wonder if I might need to break down my king hub and do some work on it. When I took my hubs in to get them laced to some 29er hoops, the guys at the shop (Bike lane) were bored so they serviced the hubs for me. Maybe I just need to ride a bunch to break them in but every since I got them back I have had a significant amount of drag. If I'm in my highest four cogs and stop pedaling the chain goes so slack that it droops down below the chainstay. With the bike in the stand I can turn the cranks backwards and make the wheel turn. Would be hard for me to bring them back to the shop to get fixed since they did it for free.

But like I said, maybe I just need to ride the piss out of them to loosen them back up.


Rode the piss out of them. Of course they never loosened up.... They came this way from King and stayed that way for close to 2000 miles. I kept waiting for them to "break in"

I've heard that one of the possible causes of this is one of the internal seals getting folded over. If this is the case then waiting won't help anything.

I suppose I could have had them serviced/looked into, but I was so incenced at having these god awful expensive hubs work so poorly out of the box that I just got rid of them. Rational? Perhaps not. Of course if you read my responses in the other thread I've had pretty crappy luck with my other hubs as well.

The DT star-rachet mechanism is amazing in terms of ease of serviceability. According to everything I've heard the hub shell breakage problem has been eliminated as well. They traced it down to the annodizing making the shell brittle.

They don't have the best engagement compared to a King/Hadley/I9 though.

Dave

[Dirt]

I'd guess that it is the drive side main bearing. That is the one that takes the most abuse. Like I said in a previous post, the seals on mine are worn, so I'm going to replace the bearing. I'll let you know how that works. Next time I've got it apart, I'll leave the seal off, re-assmeble it and see what it feels like. That will confirm if the bearing seal is the problem.

Pete