I bought a early 90s hard rock a while back, mainly for the wheels. Sun rims and Deore hubs. Every moving part on this bike was trashed, including both hubs. The rear re-built just fine, but the front, not so much. The problem is that every cone I try on the 9mm axle is so small that the bearings go right past it and into the dust cap, creating an untenable situation. What am I missing here?
As always, thanks in advance.

Have you tried larger balls?

lookup the hub on velobase to determine ball size.

and find a replacement hub, and either use its cones or relace the replacement hub into the wheel.

Do you have the original cones? Hubs can be a real bear with so many different cone profiles. Wheels Mfg still makes cones for almost any application. Just check this site and measure the one you took out:

Wheels Mfg Hub Cones

IME, the fail rate on Shimano cones is the highest of any of the brands I commonly work with. Very frustrating, and very little to no standardization. I usually have something laying around where I can scrounge a few cones, of course, that renders the other wheel useless.

Meanwhile, Campy cones are nearly bulletproof. Kind of odd that the Japanese known for quality and outstanding manufacturing missed the mark on cones.

You can find the Wheels Mfg kit above on Amazon for $111 for 26 cones.

Thanks all. Wheels mfg. doesn't appear to have what I need, though Loose Screws has a complete axle. That, of course, implies shipping, and though that worked well when we were in Merida, mail to the pueblos seems to simply disappear. [MENTION=190941]jimmuller[/MENTION], I tried bigger bearings, with poor results. I could change out the entire hub, but that would mean re-lacing the wheel. That is likely the route I'll go though. No idea what became of the original cones; most likely trashed like every other bearing on the bike, except the cups seem to be in decent shape. Even the cartridge bb fell apart upon removal. The PO is an avid cyclist, with a bike in Italy, and others throughout the world, so I naturally thought it would be well maintained. The headset bearings were dust. Etc.
Thanks again for reinforcing what I was trying to find a way around. No time like the present, eh what?

I'd like to better understand the whole issue of cone profiles. How "wrong" is it to replace cones or balls as long as they fit and the balls appear to contact the middle of the profile? How are cone radii matched to ball size? Things like that.

Shimano cones that turn up pitted almost invariably were set up too tight (often by the factory, who left no play to be taken up by the QR compressing the axle length) or by water entry and resulting rust.

Even the base-model HB-RM50 hubs from a $299 bike will last easily 10 or 20k miles if adjusted and not rusted.

Even a well-meaning "mechanic" might "snug" the axle bearings to remove play, which is a no-no when a quick release axle is used.

But again, a lot of bike companies have the wheels built and the bike built without adjusting the axles for the inevitable axle compression upon installation to the dropouts. Sad.

Bent wheels discarded by bike shops can be a great source of hub parts.

i've found that switching between many low-flange hubs of the same axle length does not change the spoke length calculations by more than 1mm. so you may be able to relace easily without buying new spokes.

to be sure, make note of the spoke length sticking up through the rim on each side. then measure both hubs before relacing, and calc the results online.

how to measure hubs: https://leonard.io/edd/howtomeasure

i also use the edd site as my calculator: https://leonard.io/edd/

You have to look at the shoulder profile, etc. to determine a match. I was rebuilding a friends bike with Shimano and the rear cones were pitted. The originals (Wheels Man.) were discontinued (RM005 or something like that). I bought a set of Wheels cones which looked like they would work and had the right measurements. No go, even though they were for the same ball size. When adjusting, once they got close to being tight enough the hub bound up. The LBS had a pair of cones they dug out, that although being 1.5mm short, worked. I put 1mm spacers on both ends and went with that. Too bad Wheels Man. discontinues cones. These were one of the few Shimanos which actually used the same cones on both sides (at least they looked the same).

FWIW, I have some NOS Shimano cones fitting the description of the CN-R036 in the Wheels Mfg. catalog. I got them for overhauling a couple of Maillard hubs. One hub worked out OK, but on the other one, the OD of the narrow end of the cone is too big for 3/16" BBs to work, and too small for 5/32" BBs. In either case, they change the OLD distance. On the hub where they worked, this was no problem, I only used the Shimano cone on one side, and used one less washer to compensate. On the other hub, the 5/32" BBs tracked more or less in the right place, but the cones moved so far inboard that I could not access the flats with a cone wrench to tighten the locknuts.
The Maillard cones I'm trying to replace have almost identical dimensions to the CN-R036, except the OD of the small end of the cone is only 10.5mm, vs 11.5mm on the Shimano cone. That 1mm killed the deal on the one hub.
Well, if the described Shimano cone will work for you, I'll be glad to send you a pair in the mail, gratis (other than passing on the gesture when you get a chance). And, if any of the cones that aren't working for you happen to fit the description of the Maillard cone I'm trying to replace, maybe we can do a swap.

Maillard hubs....indeed. I did this dance a year ago restoring my '85 Ross ATB; tried 3 different cones from Wheels that looked and measured right, but did not fit. I ended up buying an old Maillard hub from a guy in France on E Bay just for the cones, and that finally worked. They had some weird thread pitch/profile combos for sure.

By no means am I over the moon for the Normandy/Atom/Maillard hubs, but I happen to have 6 wheelsets that have one variant or another from the 70s and 80's, so I'm kinda interested in what cone options are out there (since the cones seem to embody high wearout, i.e. pitting probability, with difficulty of finding replacements, unlike the BBs, whose replacements are ubiquitous, and cups, of which I've never seen failures). I guess the answer might be collecting and hoarding old hubs, just to harvest the surviving cones such as there are. I already have one extra hub, that did not yield any usable cones. Well, I got a refund from the Ebay seller, so can't complain. Keep trying, I guess.