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Old 09-30-19, 09:37 AM
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WizardOfBoz
Generally bewildered
 
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Join Date: Aug 2015
Location: Eastern PA, USA
Posts: 3,036

Bikes: 2014 Trek Domane 6.9, 1999 LeMond Zurich, 1978 Schwinn Superior

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Idiopathic Bontrager wheel screech

I have a set of Bontrager Paradigm wheels. They're pretty good, although I'm probably a bit too heavy (240#) for them. But even with my Avoirdupois, they're fast and responsive.

I have one issue I'm experiencing. On my bike (2014 Trek Domane Series 6) I get intermittent screeching in (I believe) the front hub. Some facts

1) Mostly only occurs when I preferentially weight the left side of the handlebar. That is, I can make the screech if I push down on the left and lift the right side of the bar.
2) Does not involve brakes. I can open the brake QR so that the brakes are nowhere near the rims, and I still get the screech.
3) Probably does not involve bearings. I seem to recall a little screeching before replacing bearings and also after putting in new Enduros. The bearings spin smoothly when I turn them by hand.
4) Not sure, but the screeching sound seems to correlate with a bit of increased drag.
5) Yesterday when I started riding the screech was observed frequently and was easy to induce. At the end of a moderate (16 mile) ride, it was harder to induce and less frequently observed.

Trek/Bontrager does not provide easy access to parts diagrams (please correct me if I'm wrong), which is enough to sway me so that I'll not be buying further Trek products (I'm actually delighted with my bike, it's just that not providing adequate information to me is so anti-customer that I'm not going to tolerate it). I read that the hub is really just a DT Swiss 240. Pic below is not what I have (I have straight pull, not j-bend) but I'm assuming that the parts are similar. I'll have to take the hub apart to verify construction. I'm working on two theories:

1) Something in the stationary part of the main axle end (part 1 below) near the dropout is rubbing on something in the rotating mian body of the hub.
2) The axle (part 3) is bent or the end thingies (part 1) that stick into the axle and are bearing mounting surfaces are machined non-concentrically and this is causing rubbing.

Anyone else experience this? Ideas?

On edit, I just thought of one more thing. I believe that most sealed wheel bearings are deep-groove radial. Is it possible that somehow I got angular contact bearings and installed them backwards? This is a stretch, though, as i have about 1000 miles on the bearings.




Last edited by WizardOfBoz; 09-30-19 at 10:08 AM.
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