Freehub? problems

[Renard]

Had a strange thing happen to me today when I was out on my mountainbike, or at least its something I've never encountered before. The freehub failed entirely and as much as I could pedal I was getting no drive whatsoever.

Then it briefly engaged but within a short distance it failed again. Thought I was in for a good few miles of pushing up every rise and freewheeeling down every hill until I could get to my destination but half a mile on it started working again and worked perfectly for the rest of the ride.

Any ideas what was going on? I reckon I should just replace the freehub body to be on the safe side. Any opinions would be helpful.

 

[jay clock]

one solution is to squirt tons of WD40 in to loosen it up

 

[Renard]

I take it its best to take it off first? Any particular end is better or both?

 

[Sittingduck]

Pawls or the pawl spring/s may have gone...

 

[andy_wrx]

Sounds like the freehub body.

You can buy them for £20-ish, or sometimes it's cheaper to buy a whole rear hub : a couple of years ago I bought a Tiagra rear for about £11 and took the freehub off that.

It is possible to repair/dismantle one, but a bit fiddly and you need to make a special tool - this explains how http://www.icebike.org/Equipment/freehub.htm

As a temporary measure, yes remove freehub body from hub (using big allen key as it explains in that link) and flush-out with thinner lube : but you've now essentially removed the grease from inside it and without disassembly you can't repack it, so it'll go again before too long.

 

[ianrauk]

or just seized shut, as op said, flush out with wd40.
I had the same problem if you remember and doing that cured the problem..

Pawls or the pawl spring/s may have gone...

 

[GilesM]

What make is the hub, some are much easier to repair than others. WD40 and then some thin oil such as the Finish Line Wet lube could be helpful, but I suspect it's days are numbered, my advice is buy a new wheeel with a repairable hub and freehub, one with sealed bearing, Hope or Chris King, expensive, but worth it if you spend a lot of time off road in British weather.

 

[accountantpete]

Do you get a clicking sound when freewheeling? -If not the pawl springs have gone/caked in muck.If yes then it could be that the freewheel body has gone.

As Andy says -they can be very trying if you have to take them apart!