Originally Posted by
KCT1986
With a shorter cone, you may need to add a standard spacer directly against the cone, inside the spacer that holds the seal ring. This will depend on how far outboard the seal ring will need to be for it to correctly interface with the dust cap that is part of the freehub body.
You'll probably need a spacer anyway on the DS to make up for the shorter cone. This is needed to allow space for the cassette to fit within the dropout. Below is Shimano's standard spec, you may be able to go a
little shorter/longer.
I was pretty sure that immediately adjacent to the cone was where the spacer would need to go to make everything fit correctly. Thanks for the confirmation.
Specified DS cone for the FH-4400 is 12.7mm axial length; the specified DS cone for FH-M525 is 9.0mm axial length - a difference of 3.7mm. The axle kit for the FH-M525 happens to include an axle spacer of exactly that length (3.7mm). The two hubs use the same NDS cone.
All in all, this looks
very promising - especially since the exact replacement FH-4400 cones seem somewhere from difficult (NDS) to near-impossible (DS) to find individually.
Thanks again for pointing me at the FH-M525 as a possibility.