Originally Posted by
sonnetg
Finally...got done with greasing the bearings on both the wheels. What a pain. I damaged my 15mm cone wrench in the process... (The wrench was cheap/generic to begin with, but a hub should never be this tight.)
Few things that i observed (see images below)
1. It's obvious who assembled it had little or no clue how to assemble a hub.
2. There was barely any grease in the hub. It was pretty much dry.
3. The front hub had a bearing missing.
4. The good thing, the hubs were all standard measurements. I used 13mm cone wrench for the front hub, and 15mm cone wrench for the rear. (3/8" bearings/ 10 on each side on the front wheel and 1/4" bearings/ 9 on each side on the rear wheel). I did not have to purchase new tools, which is always good in my dictionary.
Some pics:
Bone dry!!!
I got the freewheel tool in today and was able to take my hub apart. There was more grease in the rear than yours, but not as much as I'd usually pack in an axle. The real problem was that the cones were too tight which was easy to fix. It looks like the hub uses ISO threads, so switching to a different freewheel should be no problem.
I took it on a ride. First impressions:
It took me forever to figure out why the bike wouldn't shift into first. It turns out the claw is slightly wider than the axle, so if it isn't tilted right when the axle is screwed down the derailleur and 1st cog are too close together to let the chain climb onto the teeth. I haven't been able to get the rear derailleur adjusted to both shift into first and go into fifth where it's marked on the indexed shifter. Shifting is OK. The gearing is wide enough that 15th is a little higher than 3rd on my 3-speed but 1st is low enough to crawl up very steep hills.
The front derailleur is fast and easy to use - a far cry from the old 10-speeds I'm used to. It is not indexed.
The brakes work far better than the 3-speed I normally use on these roads, but that's a bit like saying Anne Hathaway may be prettier and less drug-addled than Amy Winehouse.
The stem and bars are painted to match the allow rims. This paint ends right at the height mark on the stem.
I'll have more info and pictures once I take it on a real ride.