irwin7638

After bragging for nearly 4 years, that these were "pretty much bulletproof" hubs. I broke one. The long story is here:

https://simplecycle-marc.blogspot.com...black-box.html

but how many people have really worn one of these out?

Marc

vik 

I keep trying.....haven't managed to yet:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/vikappr...7610461277546/

wahoonc

I haven't broken any of mine yet. I have several old Sturmey Archer AW hubs and have yet to break any of those either, and at least one of them is pushing the 40,000 mile mark after nearly 40 years of steady use.

Aaron

Keith K

I have been commuting with mine for over 2 years. Annually I take it in and have it cleaned and new oil. San Diego weather isn't much of a test, however I do have some weight on the bike in addition to my 195 lbs. I think if it did break, I would invest in the 11 speed.

Sixty Fiver

The Girl had an early Nexus 8 (2007) and it blew up after 10,000 miles... it was around this time that Shimano changed their tech documents to indicate that these hubs need to be serviced at 1000 miles and serviced regularly and have also improved their seals.

My friend has an early Nexus 8 on his 2008 bicycle and it too is not operating properly.

The later models seem to be much better but have yet to see them last as well as the SA AW... they are a much more complex hub and as such are going to be more prone to troubles.

irwin7638

Thanks Sixty Fiver,
This was a 2007 model with about 15,000 all-weather miles behind it. I'm moving this bike to my winter "beater" so I may just go for a 3 spd. How do you think the SA hubs compare? Harris has a 3 spd nexus prebuilt wheel for 129, any opinions?

Marc

Sixty Fiver

The SA AW is about as bulletproof as it gets and the new Sunrace models may be even better than most of the late model British AW hubs... the quality of British made SA hubs started to drop off in the 60's and the best vintage hubs come from the late 40's and 50's when QC was extremely high.

The plus to running the SA AW is the ability to use oil lubrication and I run synthetic oil to keep my hubs running smoothly in the coldest temperatures you could imagine... my winter bike has a 1964 AWG (3 speed with dynohub) and it is nearly as smooth as my 50's era hubs.

irwin7638

That makes perfect sense. I had worried about the lube process with the nexus hub, but their literature at the time cautioned against "preventative maintenance" as the primary cause of failure. Since the winter is nearly over I will spend some time finding an SA AW for next year. Thanks once more for your expertise!

Marc

megalowmatt

Keith -

Where do you bring yours in to be serviced?

mconlonx

Service is merely taking the unit whole out of the hub and dipping it in an oil bath, letting it drip overnight, reinstalling the unit. If you're comfortable taking apart a regular hub and adjusting bearing tension, you can do the Shimano 8sp service.

Supposedly, Shimano offers the complete guts as a replacement unit, but never looked into it personally, so I'm unsure if the replacement unit is real or in stock.

mconlonx

Guts are Shimano pn Y-4D3 98011. There may be other parts you'd need, like the dust cap and cassette joint unit. Shimano list price for the guts unit is about $140, so a shop would charge you a markup over that.

sauerwald

The problem lies in your flirting with the Nuvinci hub. The Nexus hub heard your chat, decided that if it was going to be replaced, why bother continuing to put up with you dragging it out into miserable weather so that you could enjoy a nice hot coffee while your hub froze it's bearings off outside.

Just curious - is it possible that water got into the hub and froze? - I could see freezing water pushing the hub apart like your photo shows.....

irwin7638

"The machines fighting back against us" conspiracy theory. I like it. Actually I don't know what happened yet, the breakdown forced the flirtation into a full fledged love affair:

https://simplecycle-marc.blogspot.com...g-over-me.html
https://simplecycle-marc.blogspot.com...vinci-hub.html

It might be next week before I actually take it apart and see what happened. It might be that something came loose and compromised the seal.

Marc

irwin7638

Well, I finally quit playing with my new toys and decided to take the Nexus hub apart.

https://simplecycle-marc.blogspot.com...nexus-hub.html

To make a long story short there is a lot of side to side play although the axle is not broken. I do see something like a retaining clip loose on the inside of the drive side seal. I suspect that is the problem, or a symptom of a larger one. The whole mechanism rotates quite freely and easily around the axle and there doesn't seem to be any contamination from water. The grease itself seems to be pretty clean, which is great after 4 years. Anybody got any experience with this?

Marc

MichaelW

The Shimano theory of oil dip is to regenerate the grease, which can dry out. It is NOT to run in an oil bath (such as the SA, Rohloff and Alfine 11 hubs).
I stripped my 3 year-old Alfine 8 after lots of hard, all-weather use and about 1400 miles. The grease was still good but I dipped it and added grease to the non drive-side (adjustable) bearings.
It is noticable more efficient and runs more freely.

I used some cheap brand automatic transmission fluid and drained it for 10mins.

enigmaT120

Can you get individual parts for that thing or do you have to replace the whole "guts" as somebody else posted?

irwin7638

There's a parts list in the tech manual along with a blown up schematic. One of my LBS is set up to order direct from Shimano so I intend to order the parts needed and rebuild it. Fortunately,I have plenty of time to play with it before I need it.

Marc

irwin7638

Well I took the drive side apart today and found the ball retainer and ring gear retainer clip had both broken.

https://simplecycle-marc.blogspot.com...hub-day-2.html

The question is why? I'm afraid that I will have to disassemble the rest now to be sure some other secret defect doesn't come back to haunt me.

enigmaT120

When you say "ball retainer" is it a set of caged ball bearings? I can't tell from the pictures. Heck the way my eyes have been getting I can't tell in real life a lot of times.

irwin7638

Yep, it's a very large ring of very small clipped ball bearings. Sorry, my photographic skills are intermittent ast best.

Marc

irwin7638

After several days of procrastination, I cleaned the parts I had soaking in solvent and think the problem was a broken retainer ring, which loosened the bearing ring and sent little parts scurrying about the housing. Now I will have to take the ring gear and clutch apart to make sure there aren't any trapped in there.

https://simplecycle-marc.blogspot.com...ii-deeper.html

Marc

irwin7638

I finally got around to ordering the parts and grease, after some research, we found that they no longer produce the retaining ring that broke. Shimano offered no solution except to buy a new unit. I will, but it will be a Sturmey-Archer. Just for the record, the Nexus hub was a 2007 model.

Marc

Mr IGH

Which model number is the hub? I can see the 8Rxx in your photo, is it an 8R25? The newer 8R31/35/36 are better sealed than the older 8R25 units. I understand your relectance to purchase another Shimano product, be sure the SA hub you replace it with is the new (w) version. The SA 8 speed was re-designed and there's lots of the older non (w) versions for cheap on the 'bay.

irwin7638

I'm going to find a 3spd on craigslist. That's their most reliable unit and all I really need in the winter time.

Marc

Mr IGH

Which model number is on the hub shell? Should be something like 8R25, 8R30, 8R31, 8R35, 8R36.