Brocephus

Hey guys, admittedly, we can probably file this one under "way over-thinking things", but I had a couple questions, and Googling mostly created more, so I figured what the hell.
I bought 2 new wheelsets in the last several months, and as is generally considered a good idea, I cracked open the hubs (XT's and 105's) and jammed some more grease in (and they were visibly very lightly greased).
Well, ,my go-to grease these days is some Bellray waterproof grease, so I ****ered-up the hub inerds, without bothering to clean out the still-new factory grease. But I've since been reading that many greases are not compatible, and can be reduced to a less functional sludge when mixed. Can anyone elaborate further on this, and would you consider it a potential concern, or a non-issue?
A guy on another forum posted a compatibility chart (see below). I was able to find out that the Bellray grease I use is an "aluminum complex" grease, that's incompatible with several other greases, but, I wasn't able to find out what type of grease Shimano uses (I did find out that Shimano sells a presumably premium Dure-Ace grease, but that their factory hub grease was a fairly low quality grease. This is the stuff I'm trying to find out about. )
And yeah, I realize that a bike hub is not a super-hot, hi-rev machine like a combustion engine, and I'm getting pretty close to a hub re-packing anyway, so this is largely academic, rather than a critical issue.
So, anyone know what Shimano uses on most of their hubs, and have any more info on grease inter-compatibility ?
Here's the compatibility chart I referenced, the Shimano grease should presumably be one of these types listed.
(edit: the chart didn't post properly, so here's a link to it....https://www.mindconnection.com/libra...easecompat.htm )

Andrew R Stewart 

I can't say what grease composition Shimano uses but I do have two associated comments.

First is that Shimano has specific greases for their IGH and hub brakes hubs (roller brakes). Very expensive a tube and a tube might be enough for a dozen+ hubs.

Second is that I have used various greases in Shimano, Campy, and all the other bearings on a bike with little regard to both cleaning out the old grease or the brand/type of grease hundreds of times over the years with no known explosions or melt downs. I see the same bearing units each year often enough (customers who get their bike overhauled each off season, my favorite customers) and can't remember finding anything but normal wear or grease condition before cleaning the old out.

I have always said the which grease (for common bearings) is much like which soap you use on your body. It's not the type of soap used but it's the frequency of cleaning and that you do use some sort of soap. So to with the bike, it's doing the maintenance with the right frequency that is the benefit more then what lube you apply. Andy

Crankycrank

Here's a very good read on greases and compatibility by forum member Slaninar. https://bike.bikegremlin.com/2017/03...rings%20grease It doesn't specifically answer your question about the two brands but may help. From my experience most greases I've found on bikes will mix without problems but when in doubt, clean it out, and start with one kind of grease.

3alarmer 

...OP. I tied to Google up the Materials Safety Data Sheet for Shimano grease, but it's hopeless. You get a couple of hits, but none of them are for the original factory grease and they have a lot of "trade secret" entries, where you would want and expect some more helpful information.

dedhed

Probably some sort of bulk product in 55 gallon drums piped to assembly work stations. I suspect they are not using 5oz tubes.

Ronsonic 

I've seen a couple of different colors and styles of Shimano grease over the years.

I really don't think that the temperatures and loads on bicycle bearings are such to stress any grease. Waterproof is nice, but seals are the big difference there, keep the water out in the first place.

Really doubt that mixing incompatible grease is a problem in our world.

Andrew R Stewart 

My 45 years of doing this stuff has taught me that seals are not always going to keep water out of the bearing interior. But they do a pretty good job at keeping the water inside (when it gets in). Water seeks empty space and places of lower water pressure (that's how Goretex works).

So I'll repeat my biggest take away about keeping your bearings in good shape over the years- do your maintenance before you find the need to. Andy

seamuis

NoWhammies

As a noob to doing my own road bike maintenance, how often do you recommend doing maintenance to your hubs?

cny-bikeman

Too many variables - miles, weather, quality of seals, loose or cartridge, etc.

Andrew R Stewart 

"It’s hard to imagine how anyone can go through the trouble of taking apart their hubs and then not taking the time to clean out the old grease first. Seems so counter productive and a waste of time" seamius

Well it depends. On many of the tune ups I do for my customers I crack open their dry bearing units (pretty much only angular contact or cup and cone) and pump in a few strokes of our Phil grease gun. This takes only a couple more minutes then the mere bearing adjustment does, when you do these things daily it's pretty fast to do. I don't charge extra unless there's an oddity going on that we've discussed before. I usually don't even mention this on the service ticket. Maybe to the shop's bottom line it is wasteful but to my customers' bottom lines it's priceless.

"how often do you recommend doing maintenance to your hubs" No Whammies

Again as FB said, it depends. But one way to figure this out is to just do it a few times when you can and feel like it. You'll see how the next time you open up the bearings look and think back to the last time you did this, how long ago it was and how the condition looked then. Soon enough you'll have the answer for your standards and your use conditions. You have to understand that there's no black and white boarder line between not enough maintenance and too much. It's all a continuously changing shade of grey. But there is a "it's too late", that's when you have actual damage. Andy