waterrockets 

I've had this annoying creak for about 2 weeks, following that 8-mile swim/TT I did at lunch that had my PowerTap submerged. I pulled cranks, bb, rings, pedals, cassette, QR. Then I cleaned, blew with compressor, greased, reinstalled. Still creaked.

Lubed spokes, nips, dropouts, cleaned and waxed cleats. Still creaked.

Last night, I pulled the PowerTap SL freehub to clean and lube. The entire operation took about four minutes. really simple piece of engineering in there. Just how I thought it would look. No parts springing out or falling unexpectedly.

There was a bit of water in there (droplets). Nothing major, and it was all beaded up on greasy surfaces. Cleaned and lubed, assembled (seriously, four minutes since I set the wheel in my vice).

Now it has a silent freehub, engages just like it used to, and the creak is gone. I'm very pleased with the ease of service. I didn't pull the freehub off the axle, but I didn't see a reason to do so. Maybe would have added a minute.

Also nice to know that only a tiny bit of water got in there with a complete submersion, and it never dropped one record while the water was in there. It's always been dry on the cap side though.

garysol1 

that would be an SL hub I assume?

waterrockets 

Yep, sorry, SL. Corrected above.

Bullseye

What's the best way to remove/tighten the outside body of the PowerTap hub? I removed mine to replace the batteries a bit ago, but when I tried to reseal it, I found that I wasn't able to apply enough rotational force to get the PT fully sealed. Is there some sort of tool I should be using?

[also with the SL hub]

-bullseye

garysol1 

Do you have the nifty PT tool that Saris supply's with the hub?

Bnjmn

There is a tool for taking the cover on/off- it is about $5 from Saris. Give Saris a call to order it.

^*^BATMAN^*^

Ya, I learned how nice and simple it was when I switched mine out(bought used from a campy user) to a shimano free hub. Took me about 15 minutes to do it all. Now that I have campy I will be switching that back. You have to love when people make things just simple...

waterrockets 

I initially used my bench vise, set the wheel on there, and turned the wheel, similar to a single-speed freewheel removal sort-of. This is a pretty easy way to do it.

One trick that someone here mentioned is to use one of those rubber-sheet jar openers. That was good enough to loosen the cap after being tightened with the bench vise method, so this is the route I take now.

It would also be really easy to make a tool out of scrap 1x2s. Just make a rectangle such that the interior width matches the cap's flats. You'll want a fresh cut edge on the wood, off the table saw or jointer.

Kris Flatlander

this thread is worthless without pics , I want to see the insides without risking screwing mine up!

waterrockets 

If I had a 17mm wrench with me, I'd pull it apart for you real quick. There's really nothing to screw up as long as you keep the order on the nuts/washers straight. There are only like 6 pieces, including the axle and hub shell/unit.