nans

Does anyone have any experience opening an AW hub up without it being attached to the rim?

The Sheldon Brown website says the hub must still have the spoke threading and mounted to the hub in order to loosen the right side

unterhausen

yeah, the right side is in there pretty good. You could probably do it with a block of wood with a SA shaped hole in it, but no guarantees

Moved this here from valuations since it is more likely to get a response

cudak888 

Try holding the hub with a fabric oil filter strap.

-Kurt

nans

thanks for the suggestions..ill give them a try.. yes i guess it requires just a little macgyvering

zukahn1

If you don't have hub vice which a lot of bike shop don't have, it is easier to work on three speed stuff on the wheel. You can try a strap wrench which may work. Or maybe try puting it in a large vice with a couple of blocks of soft wood and some padding.

markk900

If by the right side you mean the drive side, I've done a couple off the wheel now and didn't really have much trouble frankly. It is certainly easier still mounted in the wheel, but no where near impossible without. Sheldon is a great help, but I found this video to be the most useful in seeing how its done:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ea6krXSs-lc

Let us know how it goes!

Mark

JohnDThompson 

I've done it by clamping the hub shell in a vise with soft jaws. It helps to have a tool to fit the ball ring:

rhm

It isn't actually that hard. As ridiculous as this sounds, I have been able to open hubs just holding them between my knees. Just make sure you don't slip and put a sharp screwdriver through your thigh.

unterhausen

I have a curved chisel that works pretty well for SA hub overhauls. I got it from my dad, he was the SA expert in the family, so he might have purchased it for that reason. Tapping on a threaded ring is pretty effective without a lot of torque required to hold the hub, so it wouldn't surprise me that you could do it in your lap.

Captain Blight

That's exactly what I've used. If you still need more grip, line it with an old inner tube. If that STILL doesn't do the job, fold a piece of sandpaper, like 120 grit, rough-side-out and that should really git-er-dun.

nans

ok so heres what i come up with.. but when i knock on the little notch with a hammer and screwdriver the whole hub moves counterclockwise making the hits worthless becuase its just moving with every hit. the only thing thats stationary is the axel thats clamped down

I unscrewed everthing on the other side so maybe thats why its slipping

i dont know

unterhausen

you need to hold hub shell. The ring you are trying to unscrew goes into that shell

mparker326

I clamped the hub shell in a vice with some cloth to prevent scratching. I didn't clamp it real hard. I also was just using the hub for parts so I didn't care if I ruined the shell, but it unscrewed real easily without messing it up.

zukahn1

You seem to have the concept of a hub vice almost correct you just need to trun the hub 90 degrees so you are clamping the hub body and not the ends.

nans

I'm giving up.. I brought it over a friends house with a good vice grip and we couldn't get it to budge either. It was very rusted up when i first got it so i am thinking the metal fused together somehow. Maybe ill just soak it in an oil bath or acid.

I have a AW hub on my raleigh sports and it drops out in third gear which isnt a good thing...... just hoping i could use this one to compare or cannabalize it for parts

gna

That's usually a cable adjustment. The neutral is between 2 and 3. I'd loosen it a bit and see if it helps. See Sheldon Brown for cable adjustment.

rhm

+1.

It could also be that the spring that holds the mechanism in 3rd is too weak to pull the cable all the way. This often happens if there's a kink in the cable or the cable housing. Kinks like that can often be straightened manually; if not, a new cable may be required (but diagnose the problem first). It can help to take out the offending spring and stretch it out a little (you don't need to take the right ball cup off the hub to do this).

BluesDaddy

I was able to open an AW hub by resting it on a wooden workbench and setting a punch in the notch and tapping it with a hammer. It took a lot of patience, but I finally got it.