Help me Understand
 

I recently purchase a used LeMond Tourmalet. I removed the bearings from the rear hub (stock Bontrager wheels) and out popped 18 bearings, 9 on each side. So far so good. I then cleaned the bearings and hubs, re-lubed everything and proceeded to replace the bearings. On the drive side all of the bearings went in without a problem. On the non drive side, however, I could only fit 8 bearings. The ninth bearing did not have room to fit. How could this be if I took 18 bearings pit of the hub to begin with?

Did you wash the cup in hot water? Maybe it shrank. Seriously, 9 is standard for rear cup and cone hubs so you must not have had them in the right position when you threaded on the cone.

Any chance a bearing migrated through the hub when changing from one side to other and you now have 8 on drive side and are trying to put 10 on the non drive side? I have dropped bearings through a hub before, or pushed on through from one side to other when inserting the axle.

Yes, either wrong position in the cup or one bearing from the other side. Also you do not say but it's important to inspect the cones and cups for wear before reassembly, and it's best to assemble with new balls.

Hi,

You say "The ninth bearing did not have room to fit.",
but of course there must be room for it to fit but you
have done something so that is does not appear to fit.

http://media.bontrager.com/owners_ma..._Wheels_EN.pdf

Is inanely unhelpful on the subject.

One possibility is the bearings are not the same size both sides, which
makes some engineering sense to me, but I don't know if its ever done.

rgds, sreten.

the number of explanations is startling once i began to think about it. :lol: but the most likely conclusion i can come with is that you are yanking our collective chains...

The 9th bearing will fit, they just need to ride on a wider circle. The angle of the races just caused them to slide down towards the middle.

Use grease on the races to hold in the 1st 8. Then push the cone down onto the bearings and turn it. You'll see that the cone squeezes the bearings out into larger diameter circle. The grease should hold the bearings at this wider circle. Insert 9th bearing and re-assemble.