UniChris

Took the front wheel off my seemingly lightly used craigslist "find" thinking to dismount the tire and clean up a tiny burr the rim joint.

Unfortunately once I had the axle in my fingers I could feel that there was "crunch" in its rotation.

Ordered the appropriate cone wrench to be able to put it back together, but went ahead and took it apart anyway to assess the situation.

Cups look nice, as does one cone, but the other... ugh



That spot doesn't look too nice.

9mm axle verified 1mm pitch, whatever whoever was manufacturing for "Columbia" was using that week.

I think I can just get new cones and try to resurrect this? Are their shapes normal enough if I match the thread size and pitch?

If not given it's a cheap wheel on a cheap bike I'll probably just put it back together and ride it into the ground while looking for a donor wheel or at least a hub to rebuild with...

flangehead

I had a similar cone damage on a “generic” wheel. I took it to my LBS and I had to buy new axle with cones as they didn’t sell cones alone. I eyeballed the surface shape and it appeared similar. It was less than $10.


I have the impression that in the low cost world the same standard is used.

andrewclaus

Either idea works. If there's a bike co-op near you, they'll have a bin of cones, maybe even sorted by thread size. If not, volunteer a few hours and start sorting! (That's how I got roped in.)

sweeks

I've had good luck HERE. Note that cone sales are final, however.

UniChris

Thanks, that was a useful reference for what exists, though made me wonder if the project would exceed the value of the wheel.

Took a chance and headed to the LBS with the wheel parts, which turned out to be right, because while they were basically of the just ride it into the ground mindset, they pulled out a drawer of old axle parts and we found a cone that looked like a decent match. $2 for the cone, $9 for the 13mm cone wrench. But the best part was I got to go in the back and look through their collection of salvaged parts! Granted, in my inexperience I came home with a pull-down front derailleur while my even junkier project bike needs pull-up, but that was a cheap price to pay for learning that resource is there (and if I can figure out where the munged one got to, I'll see if there might be enough parts in common between the two versions). .

Came home and repacked the hub with marine trailer grease and I think got the cones and locknuts torqued down right. At first there was still a tiny bit of play when installed but when I set the QR more firmly it's gone, which is I believe how it's supposed to come out.

Decided to take the rear wheel off and evaluate that while I was doing things, and seems there may be issues there as well - granted it's been in unheated space so brought it inside to see how it behaves when warmer; it's a bit too cold to go ride around the block to warm it up.

Update: lucky me, seems nothing "costs money" wrong with the rear hub, cleaning, regreasing, and adjusting cones seems to have worked quite well. Fortunately I already had the freewheel tool, and my 15mm "pedal" wrench was just barely thin enough to fit on the cones.

Definitely going to bring all the wrenches on the shakedown ride though, soon as it's warm enough for that!