I have a Schwinn Voyageur that looked not terrible in the CL pics so I asked my wife to pick it up for me. $100, how bad could it be? Well, it has turned into a lovely commuter, but the cables, rings, chain, BB, and hubs were toast. The BB was easily replaced with a take-off cartridge unit from a friend, close-enough rings were found at auction. The hubs would barely turn and felt like pepper mills, but when I opened them up the problem seemed to be confined to the cones and dried grease; the races and balls were fine. I couldnt find replacement cones locally (bike shops didn't carry any parts, wanted to sell new wheels) so I polished out the pitting in my lathe. Which worked a treat, the hubs are silky smooth now, but I don't reckon for long. There didn't seem to be much hardening to begin with, but the metal I'm down to is dead soft. Does anyone know of a source for cones? I believe the hubs are Suntour, but that's going by the skewers.

Check out Wheels Manufacturing, Inc.

I'd look for a co-op and see if they have old hubs. My local co-op has a little bin of cones and also a bucket of old hubs cut out of wheels... easier to look for a similar hub than it is to dig through bins of mismatched cones. If you have an oxy-fuel torch it might be possible to do some surface hardening but I don't know how realistic that actually is.

Cones for old hubs, especially Suntour can be hard to come by. Definitely check out Wheels Manufacturing, as they list the dimensions on all their cones - you might get lucky. Otherwise, if you can determine the actual hub model, you can almost certainly find replacement hubs on eBay pretty cheaply with some patience. (We might be able to help with some better photos of the hubs.)

Lastly, make sure you have them adjusted properly. That sort of cratering is almost always caused by getting the adjustment too tight. The excessive surface pressure causes fatigue on the cone surface, resulting in small divots cracking out.

Thanks, everyone. I will take measurements the next time I have the wheels out. And I'll look for a co-op; the only cones on the Wheels site that looked roughly like mine were out of stock, but it may well be that another model would work with spacers, although at $10 a cone I could be down the road a ways to new wheels, and who knows, if I ride it enough commuting I may wear out the rims before the cones get re-brinneled. For now I'll see how my refinished cones hold up, and I hasten to note that I was not the author of the damage which, I agree, was likely the cause of overtightening. But I'll take steps to look down the road too.

It looks like your Voyageur is a 1990/91 model, so it would have come stock with Suntour XCE hubs. (From your picture, it certainly could be.) Suntour's hubs were made by Sansin/Sunshine, and often shared cones / features with other Sansin hubs. I don't see anything on ebay currently for XCE hubs, but those cones may well interchange with other Suntour hubs. Some of the NOS Suntour hubs are pretty expensive, but with some patience, you should be able to find another decent used set pretty cheaply.

Adjusting wheel hub cones & lock nuts is an art. It's a fine line between perfect & too tight. Takes patience and a keen sense of feel. If you're trying to get some cones quickly order some off Amazon. Buy a variety of sizes & use the one that's the closest match. Shimano brand cones are good. But, they're usually a little thinner than other brands. You may need to get a few 1mm & 2mm axle spacers too.

Used 27" are sold here on craigslist for $5-10. They have similar hubs by SanSin.