Originally Posted by
vengeful_lemon
-You simply opened the NDS of the hub and poured Automatic Transmission Fluid from an automobile in? You didn't strip the factory grease first?
yes, just poured in a few capfuls, quite frankly, I was so fed up with the im9, nothing could have made it worse.
Didn't that cause grease to be displaced? How do the seals hold up?
Had a slight amount of seepage/weepage for the first 100 miles, now it's fine. The hub is holding oil so if the grease is displaced, the oil bath has replaced it.
Displacing grease and then having the oil leak out of the seals sounds like a good way to end up running the hub dry...
If this hub dies, so be it. I wasn't going to tolerate its bad performance anymore so I added ATF as a final attempt to love this hunk of junk.
This lubricates both the bearings and the planetary gears?
yes, it's running in an oilbath. I might add another fact, my GM 4 speed automatic trans runs without any grease in an oil bath...500lbs*ft of torque....
How did this change the behavior of the hub?
Shifts much better. I've since put a couple thousand miles on the hub, it's starting to grow on me.
Why do it this way instead of removing the internals and drilling & tapping a proper oil port in the hub shell for easy topping off?
Not interested in a "proper oil port", I prefer to pull the guts and soak them in cleaner, then oil bath. Right now there's no source for the disposable dust cap on the drive side of the hub. Can't pull the guts until SRAM makes those available....
How often do you repeat your process? Why not light-weight ND motor oil?
I had this hub running on oil for a ~3 months, as soon as I can source a disposable dustcap I'll pull the guts and decide on a time period for maintanince. I had several quarts of synthetic ATF left over from my hod rodding days, I decided to use some up. I do like synthetic lubes, much better cold weather performance.