Originally Posted by mroll

I'm not sure if it's bad etiquette to reply in an older thread, but I wanted to report back. Everything worked out! I've reassembled the hub with the Axle key from gster! Taking the hub apart was really interesting, and they are clearly very well made. Just recabling the bike and tightening some surprisingly loose spokes and it'll be back on the road!

There's one interesting difference between a few AW hubs. I think with older hubs, there's a spring that sits on the bearings of the driver and loads the driver. On other hubs, the spring goes right through the middle of the driver and pushes the cone out. It doesn't make a difference from what I can work out, but I was quite confused for a bit. The other interesting thing is how the axle itself isn't round. Maybe this is common with older hubs, but it takes a lot of the finesse (and therefore fuss) out of getting the cones tightened just right. Close enough is all you'll get and it works great!

I also wanted to say that I've been telling everyone who will listen of my experience here. A hopeless post on a message board quickly met by many helpful responses from all over. Amazing! And now I am prepared to help the next sorry chump who takes apart an AW hub without doing any research Thank you all, and especially gster. I really, really appreciate it.