robo

I'm pretty sure it's mid-late 1990's, but i'm not sure. Bought it NOS on eBay, billed as a 9-speed Ultegra rear, with little other info. It won't arrive for at least a week, but i have the auction photo, and was curious..


thanks!

-robin

el twe

If it's 9-speed, then later-90s.

Deanster04

Go to Sheldon Brown's website at harris cycles in the Boston area. He has a great tutorial with pictures and easily understandable. Google Sheldon Brown.

robo

Thanks - i'm intimately familiar with Sheldon Brown's site.. just was hoping somebody could identify the hub visually. If it is '9-speed', then it is indeed late 1990's, but i think the seller may have said '9-speed' in the sense that it is '9-speed compatible'... it could have been from an earlier 8-speed group.

I guess i just suspected that because it looks kind of old. I emailed the seller asking for the date code some days ago, but since i'd already paid him, predictably, the email was ignored

robo

OK.. did some research on my own... it appears identical to the 6402 model shown on the BikePro website, from 1996.. and from that i can determine that it is from anywhere between 1992 and 1997.

So the seller was being a bit slippery by calling it a '9-speed' hub.. it's actually an 8-speed, which you can put a 9-speed cassette on, with some caveats (such as no 11 tooth cog)..

Oh well..

Walter

Hmmm..

Slippery in more ways than one perhaps. "Ultegra" is a relatively new name for what used to be 600EX if my Shimano nomenclature is accurate. I don't think the term Ultegra goes very far into the late 1990s if at all and should be exclusively 9 speed (10 currently).

The auction should have been entitled NOS 600EX perhaps?

monogodo

^ 600 has been referred to as Ultegra since at least 1989, since that's when I purchased a full group for the Bianchi I used to have. The parts just didn't have the word Ultegra printed/etched on them anywhere. At that time, it was known as 600 Ultegra.

CampyGuy

When the hub arrives look for a date code (should be two letters), then go to the vintage trek website to decipher the code.
https://vintage-trek.com/component_dates.htm

HillRider

I've got what seems to be a very similar hub that came as part of the build kit for a '96 Litespeed Catalyst. I got it in very early '96 so they must have been available in '95. The hub is an FH-6402 and I built it up with an 8-speed group when new. The label on the hub shell says "Shimano 600". The word "Ultegra" doesn't appear on it but it was sold to me with that name.

It is certainly 9 and even 10-speed compatible but the splines go all the way to the end of the freehub body so it won't accept an 11T cog. Also, the splines on mine are threaded at the ends so it was made to accept the older Uniglide cassettes with the thread-on small cog as well as the newer lockring type.

robo

Hmm.. i'll have to inspect the hub when it arrives, and have a word with the seller. I don't care too much about the name, but the inability to use 11t cogs might be annoying, now that i think about it..

Probably not a big deal, but definitely misleading.

CampyGuy: i did email him some days ago asking for the date code, but no response.. however, my main reason for wanting to know the date was to determine the model, which seems to have been accomplished.

CampyGuy

Sheldon Brown has an article about modifying a cassette body to accept an 11t cog, but I think that's only for ones with the threads on the inside of the body. And yours looks to have threads on the outside. But if I were you I'd check his site just to be sure.

robo

Hmm.. just checked Sheldon's article, and it looks like i'm ok in that respect.. this hub should have threads on both the outside and the inside, so grinding off the ends of the outside splines is an option..

CampyGuy

There's threads on the inside and outside? I have one Uniglide hub and two Hyperglide hubs but I've never seen them combined. I'm guessing that's the reason. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

TallRider

You're wrong. There are plenty of Shimano freehubs threaded on the inside and outside, so they can accept both uniglide and hyperglide cogs. I have two such, a 7- and an 8-speed, both Shimano 105SC (the champagne-colored ones) hubs.

robo

Yup.. according to Sheldon Brown's site, you're wrong... which means... that you're probably wrong

HillRider

Exactly. The FH-6402 I described in my postng above has threads on both sides to accept either a thread-on first cog Uniglide cassette or the newer Hyperglide cassettes with a lockring.

I also have a 105 8-speed hub (FH-1056) that came on a '98 Klein and a couple of spare 7-speed 105-level freehub bodies that are also threaded on both sides. It's not at all unusual.

CampyGuy

Well, now I know.
So did they only do that in the 90's, before Uniglide became "obsolete", becasue the Hyperglide freehubs I have are both fairly new.