hub bearings?

[chris folder]

Hia guy at brompton told me if bike is used daily it's recommended that the hub bearings are re greased annually. Has anyone done this? I thought you don't need to touch inside hub

 

[mjr]

I've done it on other bikes but not a Brompton. Yes, it's better to do it than wait for the grease to run out or get contaminated and have an annoying failure (my worst was a prematurely corroded cage falling to bits and jamming the wheel, bringing me to a skidding halt and carrying the bike 3 miles home).

Plenty of videos of dismantling and regreasing on youtube, but you may not have the thin cone spanners needed to do it yourself, although they're not expensive. I prefer loose balls (@Fnaar ) since my cage collapse incident. While you've got the bearings out, you can look at them and if you see any corrosion/wear, replace them with fresh ones.

More and more bikes take sealed cartridge bearings but I don't understand how I'd inspect such things for wear, so I'd probably be replacing them just-in-case too often. I guess that's good for sales, but it's nice to read that Brompton are still using serviceable bearings.

 

[oldwheels]

I started getting a strange ticking noise. Wheels spun ok not under load but took front hub apart anyway(not a hard job ) and discovered in effect no grease at all after about 1000 miles from new. Balls appeared to be ok so reassembled with grease and noise had vanished. Pedals I understand cannot easily be regreased and must confess have not looked closely at bottom bracket but hope is a sealed bearing. Hub gear gets a few drips of EP80 now and again and chain gets wet lube when it gets cleaned at no set interval.

 

[chris folder]

Hi interesting now guy at brompton said that i mite check inside my hub maybe few times a year could be rideing on a dryer hub than when new i never thought you touched hub but when think about it grease will wear away. What grease did you use on hub? Also do you drip ep80 into hub wheel nut? I read guy done that with oil and was dribbling out of wheel on to carpet at home when bike was folded packed away. on the old sturney archer hubs used to have a little oil cap

 

[oldwheels]

Red Devil grease for the hub. First thing that came to hand really.
For the hub gear remove control rod and lay bike on side and drip oil in. Leave for a few minutes and replace rod and adjust as needed. If carefully removed usually no need to do any adjustment. Never had any leakage from this unlike the old SA with the oiler which usually leaked constantly. Mebbe too much oil but suspect no real seal to hold it in. Oiler facing up obviously. Finish Line wet lube on chains for years now. Never found any reason to change. Have an old SA on an old Dawes King Pin which leaks constantly so have to keep something under it to catch drips and a bit of rag in the spokes to keep oil off the rims and tyres. ( not while moving before you ask) !