AHHH! I Now Officially HATE Unsealed Hubs!
 

Whew! I took apart my hubs on my Haro Mirra freestyle bike today at work, because they felt a bit "tight" and wouldn't spin freely. What a pain in the butt. Good lord. The factory grease sucked, it was like honey and half of it had been thrown out of the hub and onto the center of the axle anyway.

Both of my axles are 14 mm, and I took them out and upon inspection the front one is bent. What a pain in the batoot. lol.

The bearing balls themselves weren't too bad. The races were slightly grooved, but oh well. I put some Finish-Line Teflon Bearing Grease in there, and rebuilt em. Lets hope this time they last a bit longer.

Talk about a high-maintanance piece of junk... lol. I miss my sealed bearing easability and strength like the ones I had on my Enduro. Screw these Unsealed P O S's . heh.

ahhh.

what an evening.

:crash:

Factory-fresh hubs are often woefully lubed. Unsealed hubs need to be packed full of grease to exclude dirt. Ive used unsealed ones for daily commuting in all weathers, and they work OK.

Yeah. I definitely put a "liberal" amount of grease in there...

(it was enough to hold the balls, and then I put a blob on top of them).

My experience matches yours. It's pretty sad when someone spends good money on a new bicycle whose bearings are set to self-destruct because the factory or assembler was too cheap to grease them properly. I wonder if this is why some people have trouble with premature bearing failure ...

Yeah. heh.

These hubs are on my freestyle bike.. it's an 03' Haro Mirra 540.

I was out riding today, and the rear one is now loose on me too. It's tickin' me off to be honest. I mean.. when I took the bike outta the box at the shop ( I work at a local shop here in town), they felt ok.. no wiggles, not too tight. So.. how on earth could the front one just "become" too tight.. (over the course of 2 months).. and the rear one become loose? when the "lock rings" on both sides were ALL tight on both sets of hubs? .

I dunno. it cracks me up. heh. I used Finish-Line Synthetic grease to re-pack them... the stuff that was in there was crappy.

Oh well.

Freestyle is a deliberate abuse of a bike--you shouldn't expect anything to hold up unless it's a hub like Phil Wood or Bullseye, with oversized axles and cartridge bearings.

True.

I'll probably switch out the wheelset pretty soon anyway...

these stink.. lol (Alex Y-22 rims *peened*, and Haro "fat" hubs-nonsealed). Yuckie.

Oh well.

:crash: