wonderboy

Just took my cassette off my ~3 month old custom built wheels. Most of my riding in that 3 months has been on the trainer on a trainer-specific wheel, so we're talking about 2 days a week, 2-3 hours a day on this wheel. Freehub is aluminum and there are notches in the splines.

How big a deal is this? I guess alot of freehub bodies are aluminum these days to save weight, but I clearly informed the wheelbuilder that I wanted a wheelset I could ride every day, long-term durability trumps weight but I also wanted the lightest wheelset I could do under that criteria. Since it has been only a short time, I'm a little upset. I guess I should have done my homework in advance.

Am I stressing over nothing? are the notches not a problem? It was a little bit difficult to remove the cassette due to the notches, I imagine it will only get worse. How often do these aluminum carriers need to be replaced, and am I justified in a complaint to the wheelbuilder since I made it clear up front that this was meant to be a daily wheelset, NOT a race-specific one?

thanks.

ZeCanon

What hubs/type of freehub body are we talking about here?
Aluminum freehub bodies will almost always get those notches, but I have rarely seen them get so bad that you can't pull off the cassette (though I did once see a set of ACs where the 14t cog had gone right through all of the splines).
Of course a cassette with some of sort of carrier is always recommended for such freehub bodies, but it's hard to find a cassette these days that isn't on a carrier so that's not too much of an issue. I would just pull the cassette off every once and a while to make sure the notches are not progressing, and if they are you may want to just get a new freehub body. It is not something to complain to the wheelbuilder about, as many many hubs are marketed as 'everyday' hubs that have aluminum freehub bodies, and those notches are not in any way unusual.

brianallan

Speaking of durability: the American Classic Cassettes are only rated for 1000 miles. is your cassette loose or is it on the internal spline/cage thing. Apparently those help a lot with reducing ware on the freehub body.

fogrider

1000 miles?!? you have got to be kidding!! how much is that per mile? the thing with 10 speed is that is wears out fast! I would say get cogs on a carrier and go with 9 speed.

krazyderek

I have some small 1mm notche's in both my mavic's and bontragers. It looked to me like the cassette was just becoming aquainted with it's new home, and the small notche's were just the edge and the cassett getting to know each other for the first time.
Anytime you have a shear force like that (cog trying to shear thru the profile of the cassett body) it's ok to have a little bit of deformation. Just like most bridge's and even high rise buildings are designed to bend, and sway with the wind instead of trying to stay perfectly rigid.

I haven't seen it get much worse over the course of the season, but when i do service my cassett i am sure to scrub everything clean and then apply a bit of grease on the free hub body to keep things from rattling around which could cause abrasion. I also make sure that i tighten the cassett down to torqued spec, i think overtightening it could actually cause the notch's.

If the notch's get any worse or are in excess for 2 or 3mm you might want to shoot the builder a heads up and let him know you're having difficulty, and if there's anything he's advising, or if he's ran into the problem before with that specific freehub body.

WheresWaldo

What you need are these clips:

105 10-Speed Pins

Or

Ultegra 10-Speed Clips

Or

Dura-Ace 10-Speed Clips

2manybikes

Do you have a 10 speed freehub and a Nine speed casette? No no no with aluminum hubs!

Straight from the Shimano book.... Dura ace freehub..10 speed casettes only.

The nine speed will fit and it will seem to work, but it will notch the freehub splines. The Dura Ace is aluminum and needs the deeper 10 speed splines to last. So will other aluminum 10 speed compatable hubs.

Ultegra and 105 are steel body freehubs and are approved by Shimano for 9 and 10 speed casettes.

The average weight of the Ultegra is 374 grams and the DA is 268 grams. Remember they give average weights not the weight. There is no other possible way to list weights.

teterider

Someone is going to say it so I might as well be first. You could have always gone with Campy with the better designed freehub bodies that don't notch. Obviously a useless suggestion to you. Shimano 10-speed only freehubs are better designed.

Grasschopper

You are mis-informed here. The 9 speed cassettes WONT fit on the 10 speed only splined hubs. Shimano figured out that their splines are too small so they made them taller on the 10 speed version. A 10 speed cassette will fit on a 9 speed but not the other way around.

And a 9 speed will notch a 9 speed hub as will a 10 speed. The splines are just too short...the 10s are better though...Campy is even deeper and thus don't suffer from this issue.

toothless

My king rear hub got so bad that i could feel it slip a little bit whenever I started spinning. I had to use a hammer to get them off. That was with a 9speed cassette. Replaced it with a steel body and no more problems ($100).

steveknight

I did the same thing before I rode that wheel. I didn ot know it was an issue when I ordered the wheelset. my cogs are loose so I really needed a steel body and I sold the new aluminum one on ebay.

Rutnick

I'm glad someone posted this. I like that American classic deal. I might try and get a set of those.

Nothing is as fun as notching a Titanium body on a XTR hub on a mountain bike! I didn't think that would happen until I tried to replace my cassette the other day. that was fun.

I really hate the design of the middle rings of a shimano 10 speed cassette. Can definately see problems there.

merlinextraligh

To further elaborate a 10 speed cassette may be slightly more prone to knotch a 9 speed hub, (compared to a 9 speed cassette on a 9 speed hub) because, the cogs are thinner.

I had a Zipp 9 speed hub, used with first 9 speed, then 10 speed cassettes that got a little knotched, but it didn't affect it's use.

2manybikes

So the new Ultegra and 105 hubs have the same spline as the nine speeds from earlier years?

Grasschopper

I am not sure of the Ultegra and 105 levels...but when Shimano says 10 speed it has the taller splines and when it says 8/9/10 speed it has the shorter splines.

Ok I looked it up...depends on what you are looking at. For instance the WH-6600 Ultegra level wheel is 10 speed only...but the FH-6600 Ultegra freehub (the rear hub you would buy to build a set of OP/Ultegra wheels for instance) is 10/9/8 speed. The 105 hub is listed as 10/9/8 speed.

2manybikes

In the factory book 105 and ultegra are listed as having a steel "freehub body" and a forged aluminum anodized "hub shell". Apparently the casette is mounted on the "freehub body". Those names are confusing.

Grasschopper

Right...this isn't much of an issue with the steel freehub body.

Nessism

Aluminum freehub = BAD (for Shimano that is)....unless we are talking about the new DA 10 version which should be okay because of the taller splines.

Of course, the weight weenies are to blame for all the stupid aluminum freehubs out there - they buy the wheels that have the lowest static weight and don't consider the durability factor.

Harun

old thread bump because i have a question about aluminum freehub bodies and i'm smart enough to not create a new thread about it

question: does anybody know where i can get those american classic cassette pins? (link (pdf)). I'm guessing these come with the AC wheelsets, and I don't have AC wheels but still would find those pins extremely useful in not tearing up my alu freehub body.

ericm979

American Classic sells them.

Harun

I know who sells them - i wanted to know where I can get them since none of the lbs's near me sell AC stuff and can't order them.

dsellinger

+1 Where online can I get these... to lazy to google it.

oboeguy

Another bump for an old thread. Any thoughts on how these notches might affect shifting performance? The cogs wont be aligned precisely as intended when there are notches. I'm on my second aluminum Easton freehub body and also needed a hammer for my last cassette change. I'm afraid of swapping out the cassette again for what I may find when the cogs (eventually, with much effort) come off. FYI, I had to ditch the first freehub body because it created an awful creak.

BarracksSi

Could switch to Easton and get a Sram Red cassette and Red-specific freehub body. The actual contact surface looks huge when compared to how individual cogs usually push on freehub splines. I haven't put enough mileage on mine to see what will break first (maybe 2K so far).

https://www.totalcycling.com/imagepop...64442.jpg&ct=1

oboeguy

I've had the thought myself but don't Red cassettes cost a few hundred bucks because they're machined from a single piece of metal? Too expensive for me.