Almost ready to drop this thing in the Hudson River. (I won't really do that.) I did discover my own bonehead error; when I re-joined the two halves of the hub mechanism I reversed the big bearing retainer. I've corrected that. Experimentally, I put the hub together without the dust cover and put it on the bike. That seemed to eradicate the noise and coasting friction. But with the cover on, it's still there, though I think less than when the bearing retainer was on wrong. (That is not surprising.) I guess the last resort is to bring the thing to a Shimano Service Center and ask them to go over my work and find out what, if anything, I've done incorrectly. Picture shows my error. Part
#7 , I had it reversed.
