When it comes to having a tune-up at a LBS how important , or should, repacking of the hubs be? Or is a simple adjustment all that is necessary? Is it a time factor? Should it be an extra charge IE "Hub Maintenance"?
Thanks

Depends on the hubs.

Back in the olden days, hubs didn't have any kind of seals and I used to open up mine and to clean and re-grease at least a couple of times a year. Most of the fancier wheels today have sealed cartridge bearings that are all but maintenance free. Virtually all cup and cone bearings have some kind of sealed mechanism. There are different sealed mechanisms and some are sealed better than others but all of them are MUCH better than the old hubs that I grew up with. I pretty much don't do any hub maintenance today unless they need a cone adjustment or if they start sounding dry. A lot of riders still overhaul their cup and cone hubs annually.

I would expect an additional bike shop service charge for overhauling hubs during a typical tune up.

All of my hubs are cup-and-cone and I overhaul (disassemble, clean, sometimes new balls, new grease, reassemble and adjust) them every 6000-7000 miles or about every 2 years on each bike that is ridden in mostly good weather. I overhaul the hubs on my rain/beater bike annually as the mileage is much less but the conditions are far harsher.

Hubs with cartridge bearings are usually left alone until the bearing show looseness or other signs of distress and then the bearings are just replaced.

Hub maintenance is like this: pay me now, or wait until something fails, and then pay me a lot more. I ride in the rain, and yearly hub maintenance is mandatory - at a minimum, no matter what the hub. Even if the bearings are still relatively clean, then the freehub gets filled with crap and the pawls start to skip or worse -chip or disintegrate. Hub problems tend to occur quickly - once a cartridge bearing fills with water, or the freehub fills up, then it may be only a matter of a ride until something serious occurs.

Your LBS: they have neither the time, the parts, the motivation nor the expertise to pull apart all of the myriad types of hubs out there. Even if you did pay them extra to 'service' your hubs, they would just spin it a few times, deem it fine, and then tell you good to go.

So learn how to pull your hubs apart and service them regularly.

BTW: For serviceability and longevity - best hubs ever - the old Campagnolo 70s/80s Record freewheel hubs. With the grease injection ports these can be flushed clean with new grease in seconds.

Repacking Hub Bearings is an Overhaul Job, Not a Tune-Up.

If in the course of doing a tune up it is noted the Hubs need overhauling the shop should call you and notify you the cost will have a Bump Up

to cover the increased Shop Time & parts, involved,

Repacking adjustable bearing hubs is not part of a regular tune-up, but most shops will do it at additional expense.

When we check a bike in, we check wheels for lateral movement and either say good-to-go, or suggest that the hubs need attention. Mostly new cartridge bearings on newer bikes, but still a fair amount of work on older bikes as well. We will adjust hubs as part of a tune, but when we tell customers that they should really pony up for complete disassembly/repack, most balk at the additional charge. No problem -- see you soon, sucka...

This is the core of the issue. What level of service are you paying for. More to the point, what's called for on your bike. For most fair weather riders who don't ride in the winter, or rack up many miles, a tune up is all that's called for, and may even be more than necessary.

Those who ride in all weather conditions, especially winter riders, should probably do an overhaul, where salt and grit is cleaned from the bearings. best time for the overhaul in in the Spring, so you start the season fresh.

At our shop, hub maintenance is a separate item from any of our tuneup packages. For one thing, there are too many types of hubs to include any type of hub maintenance/overhaul as a standard part of a tuneup. Problems that need to be addressed regarding the bike's hubs would become obvious during the course of a tuneup, but unless it's a simple preload adjustment (which we would go ahead and do at no extra charge) the customer would be called to okay the additional hub related item.

For a few decades I've loosened up cones and injected grease (usually Phil from their grease g u n) and then did the usual bearing adjust on the basic tune ups I've done. In the winter I do this for free (got to give some incentive for off season work) but in season I add $5 per hub. This is totally a mechanic's judgment and often explained at the take in. Sometimes as a call early during the actual service. After handling enough hubs the feel to ascertain the internal bearing's condition gets to be pretty easy. If the service needs a complete break down, cleaning and reassembly this would cost $18 for the front and $25 for the rear hubs. The injection only option is the choice of many.

While in ideal worlds we would all ride smooth rolling, no slop felt, well sealed and frequently serviced hubs (that have that "sound" when coasting). But in the real world a common hub bearing can be poorly adjusted, loose or tight, and the wheel/bike can work well enough. Having sufficient lube not needed for short term use. When we prep a wheel for sale we inject more grease and adjust the bearings to allow a very minor bed in amount of preload. (We also distress and tension up the spokes then true/quick dish the wheel before sale). Andy.

I suppose I could start a new thread but... how do I inject grease in these? I have a couple but I thought they were just oil ports and ignored them. The hole is pretty tiny and I'm sure I'd need a special tool to get at the middle of the hub.

He's actually mistaken and you are right; those were oil ports, which is kind of ironic considering how good Campy grease was...

Perhaps he was thinking of the Suntour grease guard hubs and bottom brackets? I've never used those but it seems like a good idea.

I was under the impression that those holes in older Campy hub shells were oil ports too. Intended for those who lubed their hubs for every ride.

Sigh.... OK. Let's call them 'OIL PORTS'. Whatever. I will capitalize this from now on to make sure that no one is offended by my former sacriledge in calling these 'grease ports'. Is Tullio spinning in his grave?

On the 70s/80s vintage Campy hubs there is a 'OIL PORT' on each of the outside dust caps and at the center of the hub shell. How to service these: you take your grease injector (it makes no sense whatsoever to inject oil into these).. my grease injector cost me about $10 on Ebay, and it screws onto a the small auto bearing grease tubes I can buy at Walmart. So the whole setup costs about $15 and lasts for years.

Inject grease in the center of the hub and at each of the ends until the contaminated stuff comes out. Takes less than a minute. As long as the hub was set up correctly to start (mine are), then the insides are now clean and you don't have to fuss with disassembly, solvents, reassembly, preload adjustments etc. Then you're good for another few months of dry riding, or one awful extended ride in the rain.

I think the better Campy hubs still have the 'OIL PORTS', for grease injection - to this day. Or they should. They are a great time saver.

Anticipating the objections of some truly fussy and pedantic individuals, yes, my approach does not remove every microscopic trace of the old grease. Maybe 5% is left. Maybe. So flush it out with my approach, and spin the wheels for a few revolutions and then repeat with another flush. Now you're down to 0.05 x 0.05 remaining old grease. Is that clean enough for you? Repeat one more time?

Exactly.

The thinking was that oil, being thinner than grease, created less resistance but needed to refreshed frequently since it would run out of the bearings fairly easily.

Your sarcasm notwithstanding, Dave, nobody is being fussy; grease was never part of the design intent...

Entertaining stuff. What I heard, read years ago, aligns with that, rmflna. These were designed as racing hubs, after all. During a race, a mechanic could do a quick injection of "go fast" juice (oil) into them via the holes. Could be BS lore, I have no idea.

I have several sets of Record hubs but have never used the grease injection method outlined above. Never squirted oil into them either.
Whatever blows your skirt up though.

I've always thought of the oil ports being used on old Campy hubs used for track racing, not so much old Campy road hubs.

After initial miles all well lubed bike hubs run in an oil path even if greased. It's my understanding and observations that the balls will plow a path through the grease as they orbit. The pushed aside grease will feed the oils that really are in play at the contact points.

The oil ports and nipples in some older bikes were for oil injection as I've been told. Seems the long lead times between bike production and the eventual sale allowed the grease to thicken , having an oil port would let the shop to add a few drops of oil to the thickening grease. As both lube technology and market efficiencies have increased this need to freshen up the bearing lube is far less. Assuming that the manufacturer uses enough grease when they first put the bearings together. Andy.

My memory can not be trusted from 35 years ago but as I recall these great hubs were the cat's meow for the track and as stated one could use the oil in the port of the hub w/o any grease for shaving what we now call a fraction of a watt over properly greased bearings. Never new anyone who did this, just BSing talk around the shops.

But the track hubs didn't have oil ports.

I never heard that this was a track-only practice.

Of course, I never knew anyone who actually used only oil; Campy grease was the way to go because it had a fine abrasive that kept everything nice and polished...

I've never heard that one !

We old guys remember a lot of odd stuff...

I am going to try this on my '84 Bianchi Campy record hubs ... where does the contaminated stuff actually come out?

I don't see why one couldn't install a grease zerk into a hub, but I don't think I've seen one yet.

I have seen bottom brackets with them.

One of the issues is that there is a lot of empty space along the axle (or bottom bracket spindle) that doesn't need grease, and potentially would increase friction to put it there. So, traditionally, just the balls and cups are greased.

Cleaning and repacking the bearings is a bit of a pain, depending on how long it has been ignored. Plus, possibly new cones. So, I could imagine extra charges from bike shops.