bakerjw

Last weekend I broke the 2nd spoke of the year on the rear wheel of my Schwinn circuit. I probably had let them get out of balanced tension. So last night I swapped out all of the spokes on the cassette side of the wheel and surprisingly enough got it relaced, running true, and tensioned properly using a parks tension gauge and truing stand. It is an art form to be sure.

The one thing that I noticed is that the bearings are very rough feeling. I bought the bike new last July and sometime in August or September had the same issue with the front hub bearings. For the front, I had to replace the cones as they were both pitted and it smoothed them out quite a bit. At that time I also cleaned and regreased the rear hub. I am sure from what i am feeling that I will find more pitting with the cones in the rear hub now.

I am looking for options. I know that I can swap out both of the hubs, relace, retension, true the wheel, etc... easily enough but need to know if the Joytech hubs are similar in size to Shimano, etc...

Is there any way to press in new and better bearings?

I am also looking into a new wheelset to get by with, but this is not a bike that I will ride for years so I can't get too carried away on price. There is no sense dumping a ton of money into a bike that will be replaced sometime in the future.

Just looking for options.
Thanks

krems81 

Unless you have a cartridge bearing hub, you're stuck with the races your hubs came with. If they're cartridge bearing, you pull out the whole thing as a unit, and push a new one in, like on rollerblade wheels.

Spokes are not that expensive. Unlace the hubs, find the new ones you want to lace up, and take hub measurements to enter into a spoke calculator. Find the erd of your rim, or measure it yourself, enter the data, and it will give you a spoke length to build with. Now you're cooking with grease. Go to your most reasonable lbs and ask for their most generic STAINLESS steel spokes in the correct length. If they don't carry generic spokes, ask them if they can order you some at a better price than you'd pay for two wheels worth of the dt or wheelsmith they probably carry. If not, go with dt, still cheaper than a new wheelset, and if you get some nice hubs now and build them into the wheels, when your rims crap out you can always rebuild them to some nice rims with butted spokes later, for a gradually upgraded wheelset.

Here's a page that has a spoke calculator that you can download (its built into the excel spreadsheet), with a rim and hub database. I wouldn't want to try to find a joytech hub on there, they're so nonspecific. If you scroll down the page linked above, there are detailed instructions for measuring your hubs and rims for accurate data to put into spocalc. Good luck, and feel free to pm me if you get stuck.

Cheers.

DOS

You bought a new bike in July and had pitted cones by August? Either those are some mighty poorly made hubs or something else isn't right. Since you mention cones and regreasing, are the hubs standard loose bearing cup and cone? Or does your reference to "pressing in" bearings imply cartridge hub? Since we are talking a Schwinn circuit, I am guessing loose bearings. If indeed you have loose bearings, and you just recently regreased them, I think what could cause damage you describe is overly tight cones. If cones are too tight, they squeeze down and impinge bearing movement. They need to be tight enough to eliminate all but a little play but not so tight to prevent free movement. You want a little play because the QR skewer, when tightened down, will squeeze the cones a bit tighter. Try backing the the cones out just a bit to see if the roughness dissipates.

Edited to Add: If bearings are held in a retainer cage and the cage has been put in upside down, that could also chew up the cones because cage is rubbing against the cone rather than the ball bearings. Lose the retainers and add a couple of bearings.

krems81 

to be specific, you want 10 bearings on each side in the front, and 9 on each side in the rear.

rear are 1/4". front are 3/16"

davidad

When you adjust the cones on the hubs you need to make sure that there is a small amount of play in the axle. When the quick release is tightened the axle compresses, it is then preloaded and the play goes away. There should be no side movement at the rim caused by a loose adjustment.

operator

Not surprising that his cones wear out. How many bike shops even bother to adjust anything properly to cut down on time "waste" on assembly? Some shops assemble bikes in 15 minutes - 30 minutes. Of course it's going to be piss poor.

As for replacing the hub. On that wheelset it's not worth the labour or the cost of swapping out the hubs. The rims are nothing special, joytech hubs are bottom of the line and then you'll get all new spokes. Might as well just handbuilt a quality wheelset instead. Repack your hubs and ride it into the ground.

Retro Grouch 

That's what I think too. If it was my bike I'd lace up a new wheelset and keep the old ones for spares. If you want to save a little money over building them yourself, buy a pre-built wheelset.

HillRider

Check the data on hub dimensions on the Damon Rinard Spokecalc spreadsheet on Sheldon Brown's web site. I wouldn't be surprised if the Joytech and Shimano hubs are nearly identical.

On a late 80's Trek that came with a 36H Maillard freewheel rear hub, I replaced the rear hub with a 36H Shimano Acera X freehub. I was able to use the same spokes and rims as if they had been made for the Shimano hub. A comparison of the hub dimensions showed they were almost exactly the same so the new hub was a "drop in" fit.

krems81 

I try not to rebuild old rims anyway. If you're not an experienced wheelbuilder, rebuilding used rims is going to be harder than building with new ones. Harris cyclery's policy is to never use old rims or spokes, even if they're a customer's. Peter White has the same policy. Its a good one.

If you're going to take the time to build a set of wheels, learn on new rims, with new spokes. Old hubs are fine if they're still good. Sun rims are typically cheap enough, and they're quite good for their price. They're not drastically or even considerably inferior to Mavic, like Alex rims are.

A nice pair of eyeletted double wall, polished 27" Sun rims just sold on ebay for $35, shipping included: https://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...m=290298924639

Do your spoke calculations once you find the hubs you want to use. A beautiful pair of Shimano 600 cassette hubs just sold on the bay for $35 with shipping as well: https://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...m=380106222999

Go to your LBS and ask them to order you their most budget stainless steel spokes in the correct length. Straight gauge DT spokes are not considerably better than any other spoke that's stainless. Butted spokes are a different story. They pay ~$20 for a box of 100 "whatever" brand stainless. Even at 100% mark up its $40, and you have an extra wheel's worth for a rainy day. If you need different sizes for different size hub flanges or a dished rear wheel, better to go with the (probably DT) spokes they have in stock. It will be maybe $20 a wheel and you spend the same amount.

Add it up. $110-120 for a handbuild wheelset ain't bad. Plus you get to do your first build on new rims and understand how its done. You don't want to be reigning in a wonky rim on your first go round.

Good luck!