ssmwalker

Hi everyone. I'm doing a full service on my rear wheel (Shimano WH-R500), and noticed that I only have 8 1/4" bearings on either side of the hub. Now, according to Shimano's tech documents, it's meant to have 9 on each side. This is the first time I've serviced the bike myself, so it's possible that the local bike shop may have lost a couple of bearings last time, or it's how it was originally (I got it from Wiggle a couple of years ago). From what I've read, some people talk about dropping a bearing to make it run more, "loose", but unless otherwise convinced, I'm unwilling to go down this path. So at this stage, I'm going to get 18 new ball bearings and sort it out. Any opinions?

Regards,

Stuart

HillRider

I have the same wheelset on my rain bike and the rear hub should have 9 x 1/4" bearing balls per side. I strongly recommend you use all 9.

BTW, any chance a couple of the balls escaped into the inside of then hub shell when you disassembled the hub? That can happen.

FastJake

Use 9 per side

ssmwalker

Thanks guys. I definitely didn't lose any of the balls, but of course, I should just taken a photo before taking them out - c'est la vie. Anyway, I'm off to grab a new set of 18.

fietsbob

Go to a place that sells bearing balls, a bag of 1000 is pretty low cost. just know how big the balls are.