Axle nut compression binding wheel
 

I've just spent hours attempting to tension the chain on my first fixed gear project. After hours of work I couldn't seem to get the wheel setup w/o any binding (scratching sound like fingernails on chalkboard). I finally figured out that the issue wasn't the BB, chain tension or chainline but the compression of the drive-side axle nut on the hub. W/o a chain the wheel spins freely until I tighten the drive-side axle nut, then binded rotation with that scratching sound. Madness!

This is a brand new wheel and prior to my attempted install yesterday it's only been out of the box to install the cog, lockring and tube/tire. Any thoughts on what may be wrong? I just want to ride...

Thanks,

Tom

The 'axle compression' effect is apparently normal. The hub was adjusted without the nut in place and is too tight.

You need to remove the wheel and re-adjust the hub taking axle compression into account. There are various ways to do that, one being the method the Park Tools site outlines for setting hub adjustment with a quick release. (Different cause, but same effect.)

Or you could purposely adjust the hub bearings too loose, fit the wheel and tighten the nuts, then check for play or tightness. Trial and error, in other words.

I'm assuming this is a solid axle (non-QR) wheel . If so, then tightening the axle bolts should only be squeezing the dropout between the nut and the bearing cone and there should be no axle compression. If it's a QR wheel, then the skewer squeezes the entire axle together and bearing play could be an issue.

I wonder if you have the wheel twisted in the dropouts causing the axle to bend when you tighten both sides.

+1. Tightening axle nut should not compress bearings. Have you looked at the methods for installing a fixed wheel? I usually walk mine back into the dropouts (conversion, horizontal drops), tightening one nut, moving the other back and tightening it, loosening the first and moving that side back, etc. It's a little tricky, but should not affect your bearings.

Was using the Sheldon Brown described the walk in method with all chain tensioning trials... The key symptom was the binding when only tightening the drive-side axle nut w/o a chain. I gave in and took it to the the LBS I got it from. Seems there were multiple issues related to subpar manufacturing or materials. The dust cap on my wheel had a burr on it it that impeded rotation when the drive-side axle nut was tightened. After this was resolved we found a click/impeded-rotation when spinning the axle but only after the cog and lock ring were installed. They had another wheel of the same model on the floor and we found that both wheels had the same impeded-rotation issue when swapping out different cogs and lockrings between both wheels (btw, 2 sets of dura-ace cogs and lockrings). boo.

The wheel now spins freely when fully tightened and chain tension is a-ok. I'll take it in later this week to see if we can get the axle rotation issue resolved.

Axle compression or no, the effect is to tighten the hub. There was a thread on this recently, started by me since I was surprised about the effect. I now adjust solid axle hubs with the Stein vise, same as a QR hub.