sillygolem

How is babby form...er...how do I get 2nd gear to work consistently on my AW hub? Even after replacing the old, rusty cable I can only get the hub to do three things no matter how much I adjust it:

I can adjust the cable so 2nd works fine, but I have no 1st.

I can have 1st, but no 2nd.

I can have 1st and the brief use of 2nd...until I pedal a while or switch gears up and down a couple times.

And yes, I know 2nd only engages within a .0000000001 inch of cable pull.

Is there something I'm missing here? Is there some adjustment I'm missing, or is it time to pull the hub apart and overhaul it?

Zaphod Beeblebrox 

how's your shifter? I have problems of this nature that were cured by a new shifter.

sillygolem

Probably not a bad idea. I'll give that a whirl.

Roll-Monroe-Co

Have you tried these instructions?

https://www.sheldonbrown.com/sturmey-...tml#adjustment

I have had several bikes with AWs and rarely had the mystery neutral problem. Be sure that none of your cable stops are slipping. This was the cause of much woe for me on one occasion.

Amesja

Tried cleaning the goop out of the hub? If the new shifter doesn't help that's your next stop on the fixit bus.

sillygolem

It was lacquered when I bought it, so I hosed down the inside with PB Blaster which freed up everything. Since then I've only used 20W oil in it.

The cable stop appears to be in the same place it was originally, and I checked to make sure the bolt-on adjuster stayed put on the new cable.

I've already got a new shifter on the way.

wahoonc

What kind of condition is the fulcrum sleeve insert in? How about that plastic pulley? I replace mine with the steel versions.(look about half way down the page)

Aaron

Amesja

Did you actually pull the insides out or just spray PB in the oil port to flush?

It does indeed sound like the shifter might be the problem though.

rhm

I agree the shifter could be the problem, but the cable, fulcrum, and pulley are equally likely candidates. Also, if the hub cones are way out of adjustment, that can throw things off. Aside from that, how much have you used the hub, so far? If the hub has sat for many years and you've only recently got it going again, I wouldn't expect it to work right just yet. I'd suggest you keep trying the various fixes mentioned above, ride the bike as much as possible, and don't do anything radical just yet. Coast a lot. Shift a lot. Keep checking the adjustment. Put a hundred fresh miles on that hub and I expect it'll be fine.

Amesja

IMHO, if it wasn't fully disassembled and cleaned, and merely "PB blasted", then there probably is zero grease left in the bearings. Not only will it make tensioning the bearings a little harder but it definitely will leak oil like the Exxon Valdez if it is full enough to operate smoothly. That, and the clutch might not free up as easily as the rest of the parts. I'm just starting to be comfortable with pulling apart the SA hubs but I would imagine First/Second gear issues would show up more with a goopy clutch than Second/Third.

rhm

I won't pretend to be that comfortable with pulling apart SA hubs either, but I have done it several times lately! But I disagree, tentatively, with your last point. If your cable is adjusted right, there shouldn't be any problems with 2nd and 1st gears, because cable tension should force the hub into those positions against whatever resistance is caused by goopy grease &c. The opposite is true of high (3rd) gear.

The spring that pushes the hub into high (3rd) gear is a fairly large compression spring, and it's not very powerfull. If there's any resistance in the trigger shifter, or the cable (very likely, in my experience) or anywhere else, this spring may fail to engage the high gear properly. On some bikes I've had to pluck at with the cable, while riding, to get enough slack for the spring in the hub to do its job.

If this is the case; that is, if that spring isn't properly overcoming the friction of the cable housing or whatever, then it's very difficult to adjust the cable properly. This, in turn, makes it impossible to find N (2nd) gear.

Amesja

You are right. I was thinking about it totally backwards in my earlier post. Going from second to first would not be an issue since the force of the cable would just yank it in. Going from first to second would be the most powerful part of the spring and not as hard.

But the 2-3 transition would be at the end of the spring's tension and the neutral space would be in the way. If the area between the pinion pins was full of gunk the clutch might have a hard time engaging properly into 3rd gear -especially if the keyway notch in the axle also was full of gunk and the axle key couldn't travel easily all the way away far enough from the sprocket end when the gear indicator chain tension was released.

sillygolem

I opened the right side enough to spray the interior, and then I greased the bearings, screwed it together, and put some oil in through the oil port. The bike sat for who knows how long, but I've ridden it quite a bit with just 1st and 3rd.

Also, this bike doesn't use a pulley: The shift cable runs directly from the shifter down to the cable stop on the chainstay. It's held in place by a metal clip on the downtube.

JohnDThompson 

In that case, maybe you should try a pulley. I'm having trouble visualizing your cable routing, but if the cable can't move freely shifting will suffer.

Amesja

I'd move the cable stop up where it belongs and add a pulley in the proper location using either one of the S/A pulleys or one of the problem-solver ones.

I'd also pull the hub apart and totally clean it out. It's not as hard as it seems. It's something everyone should do once in their wrenching career.

sillygolem

Unlike most bikes, the cable does not run across the top tube, around a pulley, and along the top chainstay to the hub.

The cable is covered in the housing from the shifter to the cable stop, just as the original cable was. It runs through a clamp on the bottom tube directing the cable and housing down the side of the bike. The housing ends at the cable stop on the bottom chainstay, and then the cable connects to the indicator spindle.

It moves freely and I have no problem shifting it. The old cable also moved freely, but it was rusted and had a little bit of a kink, which I though accounted for the shifting problem as I thought it would prevent even tension in 2nd.

I imagine by the time the shifter gets here this will be a 300 post thread about the merits/techniques/voodoo of SA hubs.

Glennfordx4

I don't know if this will help you but I have the break downs and service manual for AW hubs. I will post it here anyway. You should be able to copy and save the image so you can enlarge it.

Glenn

Amesja

Wow Glenn, that manual is much better than anything I found online when I was learning to fully disassemble and reassemble the AW hub a few weeks back.

This Sutherlands Handbook looks top-notch. I am going to do some research into them if they are this good.

Amesja

HOLY SCHMOOLY!!!

Never mind.

Glennfordx4

Yeah they ain't cheap lol, I borrowed the third & fifth editions from a friend and started copying them page for page. I would love to get my hands on the 7th ed but I'm not paying that for it, if I was doing this for a living I would nothing beats a good manual. I learned a long time ago doing motorcycle repairs that a factory manual is the way to go compared to say a Chilton's or Hanes it can keep you from pulling your hair out.

Glenn

Amesja

You said a mouthful there. Those Chilton and Haynes manuals are total rubbish and just infuriate me whenever I'm forced to use one and don't have the real thing. Those comic books aren't worth the paper they are printed on. The only thing they are good for is to take them up to the summer cottage and hang them by a nail in the outhouse...

The first thing I do when I get a new/used motorcycle or car is to find the OEM factory service manual (usually they can be found for a decent price at ABE books online as I never buy anything new-new any more.) I hear you about pulling your hair out. Honda makes some of the nicest repair manuals. Every car should come with the complete maintenance manual and not those silly owner's manuals they come with. Then they wouldn't cost so much. How much money does it cost to print a book they already have to write anyhow when they build the car -especially if they were printing so many more copies of them.

Glennfordx4

I will check that site out when I have more time, I always buy the factory manuals also and still need the set for my Ford Bronco which goes for a good chunk of change on Fleabay. I sold off half of my library of factory motorcycle manuals this winter and still have a ton left that I am going to keep for now. I also bought the dealer micro fisch sets for Yamaha, Kawasaki, Suzuki, Honda and Polaris which cost me a arm & a leg but now with everything on line they aren't worth selling.
Glenn

Amesja

Back in the day the microfiche paid for itself when looking for parts but these days many of the online parts houses have their own online versions of the microfiche right on their sites so it isn't that important to be able to look up part numbers like it was in the past.

I always hated being tied to the 100% mark-up (or more) local motorcycle and auto $tealers for parts.

sillygolem

I remember one such manual a friend and I were looking at said to remove a starter from a vehicle (Ranger, IIRC - he's had more than a few vehicles) that the engine would first need to be removed. 8^0

I recently went though some frustration putting a new timing belt on my Legacy because the timing info in Subaru's service bulletins were incorrect. I ended up finding the correct timing marks though a site on Subaru/VW Minibus engine swaps.

sillygolem

I got the new shifter, but still have the same shifting problems.

I took apart the hub. The ball ring is missing a ball bearing and the pinion pins have a little wear (visible, but the pinions spin freely without any side-to-side wiggle.) Otherwise the hub looks almost new and everything moves freely. The only grease was what I applied to the cones and outer bearings, plus oil I've dripped into the hub.

Questions:

Should the sun pinion on the axle be removable? It's held on by a pin that looks like it was hammered in. The diagram above doesn't show it being removed.

Should I worry about replacing the pinion pins?

How do you unscrew the bearing cap on the ball ring? The diagram above show it being separated, but I don't see anything obvious (notches, etc.)

Is there anything else I should look for that might solve my shifting problem?

BTW - If you want to see how to take apart an AW hub, watch this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ea6krXSs-lc