I was out riding on the highway, and when I stopped for a break I noticed the rear wheel didn't spin freely. After ruling out the brakes or any other rubbing I removed the rear wheel. Somehow the cone had tightened up on its own. Fortunately I had a cone wrench and 17mm wrench with me. The locking nut was still tight.

After eliminating side to side play but allowing for smooth rotation I continued riding. After another 15km I stopped to check on it, and the hub was now loose enough the wheel could be moved side to side.

This is the first I had it tighten on its own while riding, but I have had it loosen on its own before.

The hub is a Deore LX on a trek 520 touring bike. Any suggestions? On a related note, are there any tools / improvised methods to keep the axle from rotating while tightening the lock nut (don't want to carry a bench vise with me) ?

Thanks

One side will try to loosen and one side will try to tighten, all on account on the interaction between the threading and the load on the wheel. Do the locknut up properly and it shouldn't be a problem.

If you adjusted it on the road, I'll bet that you did the job from the left side where access was better. If you locked the cone and locknut properly, it probably means that the problem is that the right side isn't locked together and that's where the problem is.

One other possibility is that you have a broken axle and the QR skewer is holding it together so it isn't obvious. Take a few seconds to remove the skewer and confirm that the axle is OK.

Sometimes with Shimano (and possibly other) freehub rear hubs, the large hollow bolt that holds the freehub body to the hub body comes loose, and this can cause the bearings to tighten up or bind. The same thing could, I expect, cause the bearings to loosen.

I initially thought this may have been the case as there was no side to side play upon initial tightening, but some up / down play. I'll take it apart tonight and check everything over. The cone on the drive side was extremely tightly locked when I did some maintenance months ago. I felt it best to just leave it locked and always work from the non-drive side so as to not throw out my derailleur tuning. Maybe that side has become loose and is in need of tightening.

Today, I had this problem too, watch it closely because I finally had to replace the hub. Does your's have some mileage on it or is it brand new and no/low mileage ? On mine, the bearings on the cassette side, that bearing race was mangled, the shredded metal scored the inner bearing cup and that was all messed up. It was easier and cheaper to pay the LBS the $ 35 for a comparable Weinman 519 rear wheel, 36 spoke and aluminum hub. Riding it wobbly like that, the axle had a slight bow to it and that finished off the bearing race cage. It was never going to roll right after that. I was about 1/4 way into the 30 mile loop I do on my Fuji MX-200 atb. I walked it the rest of the way to my friend's home and took it apart, or rather tried to adjust it. I could never get it to align straight in the center of the cassette and hub and when it was tightened, it never rolled without binding internally and then loosening the outer bearing nut. After labor & tax, $ 41 and change. I'm ready to get more miles and years out of the 14 year old bike. The other side looked pretty clean and reusable, but the other side was a mess.

This is a cassette? Have you had it off? There may suppose to be a washer behind the cassette for 10 speed wheels that are also to used for 8 and 9 speed. Without this washer the cassette will bind on the spokes.

In this case, I would:

1. remove the axle by unlocking the left cone & locknut and removing them. Confirm that the hollow freehub-body fixing tube is nice and tight (using a 10mm hex key). Confirm that the freehub body's bearing cup isn't loose if possible (it's reverse-threaded). They seldom are loose, though.

2. inspect everything for signs of damage, such as metal powder in the grease

3. wipe everything clean, install fresh balls and grease

4. tighten the DRIVESIDE cone and locknut against eachother very snugly, so they'll never move by themselves, then insert the axle

5. clamp the axle in an axle vise, then install the non-driveside cone & locknut and lock them firmly against eachother. Obviously, you want to pay attention to the bearing adjustment as you do so... sounds like you're aware of that.

In nearly all cases, that would take care of things once and for all.

When I removed the axle I immediately noticed that the grease on the drive side was very dark and contained metal fragments. And the freehub was loose and wobbling. The head of the freehub pin is very mangled. Probably the result of me overly enthusiastically tightening it without the use of a torque wrench a couple weeks ago.

The threads look fine so I don't think the hub body itself is damaged. I should only need to replace the pin and maybe the freehub if there is any damage to the raceway. The cones and bearings are unpitted, so the freehub may be fine as well.

That looks to me like a ball bearing got out of place and rampaged on the end of the part in the photo.

The Shimano website said I needed an FH-M585 freehub body. The guy at the LBS didn't have one, but gave me an FH-M595 after visually comparing it with my old one. From what I can tell the M595 is for Deore and M585 is for Deore LX. The M595 spec sheet on Shimano's site indicates there is no interchangability with the M585 freehub.

It does look pretty close but should I just take it back and look elsewhere?

What often matters is the interface between the dust shield on the FH body and the seals and/or shield on the axle cone. If they seem to jive OK, then I'd give it a whirl. Removing the old dust shield and installing it on the new FH body could work but you have to be careful not to damage them, as they're easy to deform.

In the bigger picture, that hub's relatively affordable and you could get a brand-new one for the parts. Then you'd have a new FH body and cones, so there'd be no fussing with seal/dustshield compatibility as they're a match. In fact, here: $12. https://www.cambriabike.com/shopexd.asp?id=84599

The "head" on that retainer tube bolt is supposed to be a squared off section. Not a gouged out triangle like your picture shows.

I think that what happened is that the shop guy was actually wrong and the freehub you got didn't let the rim on the head sit down flush into the center of the bearing cup. Then when you dropped the balls in the bearing balls were riding partly on the cup and partly on the end of the tube joiner screw. It wore away as shown and your wheel got loose due to teh wear. You tightened it up and the balls finished the job and when it got tight that was due to the metal particles jamming like little wheel chocks in front of the balls.

So likely now you need a new freehub AND a new tubular retaining screw because the metal particles will have played havoc with the cup in the freehub.

That's why in my particular situation I just went ahead and replaced the whole wheel. I might've saved a few bucks, but in the end, I wound up with new everything with the exception of tire & tube vs the bike tech replacing a few items and then getting me close to the same cost with labor charges. And the cluster side internal bearing cone, that was ground up and broken loose, a slight bow in the axle and how long before even a rebuild/repair job and I'm back in the same situation ? In my case $ 40 was no big deal, but when the wheel set is a few hundred, yeah that could hurt as a financial setback. And even there, rebuilding is a chance on new & older slightly worn parts for tolerances.

I decided to have the other LBS take a look at the hub before I put it back together. They said it was toast as the threads that the freehub bolt mesh with were damaged.

They didn't think it seemed likely that the problem was a result of me overtightening the bolt and recommended that I go back to the LBS I got the bike from and see if they'd warranty it. After waiting about an hour they told me Shimano declined to warranty it and that it would cost $110 to rebuild.

I went back to the other LBS and they told me that without question Shimano would warranty the part, but I'd have to pay for labour. So rather than pay good money for labour to rebuild a generic OEM rim I'm going to pay the difference to have them put the new hub on a Mavic A719 rim with quality spokes / nipples.

$110 to rebuild what? To unlace and build a new hub into the old rim? Or to rebuild the hub? Because the price for disassembling and rebuilding a hub should be closer to $20. It is not outrageous for a new hub and wheel build.

The quote was to put a used hub they had laying around the shop into the wheel, so unlacing / lacing.

You can buy a better wheel for that much.

I have a Deore LX M550 wheel which I checked and maybe if you cleaned up the bearings, cups and cones and found them mostly okay, you may simply want to get a freehub fixing bolt for 10mm axle available for $2 at this URL: https://www.niagaracycle.com/product_...ucts_id=413153

Not sure if you think it's worth a try. But the price is right if it fixes the rear axle.

Specs match the bolt on my Deore LX hub. The torque spec is about 35 ft-lbs for that central bolt. I think it may be easy for anyone to use too much torque, and that may cause the retaining lip on the bolt to fail and lift it up where the bearings will grind them down into mush and then allow the freehub body to slide outward and cause looseness in the axle.

One last question. Should the toothy thing in the attached picture that the arrow is pointing at be removable from the hub body? I was able to pull it out of my old hub with my fingers. Since it doesn't have a part number in diagram, I suspect its probably something that should be permanently mated to the hub.

Yeah, it ought to be permanently mated to the hub.

Could be something simple like loose lock nuts, or something more troublesome like a broken axle, too many or too few balls in the race, a ball not running straight in the race, or the wrong size balls. Obviously if the hub's never been worked on you can eliminate some of these, but sometimes a locknut and cone will work loose enough for a ball to get squeezed out of the race.

Take it apart, clean it, replace damaged parts, and put it back together with care. Or have a trustworthy shop overhaul the thing.