vintagerando

Can anyone ID these early Shimano hubs? They may be Shimano 600, but I cannot match them to anything on Velobase. The rear hub reads "Shimano 6D, Made in Japan".
Are they indeed Shimano 600?

malcala622

Shimano 600 AX

Jeff Wills

Nope. "AX" hubs had distinctive "Direction 6" flanges, where the spoke bends were all on the outside of the flange. Also, the bearing caps would be a light blue color. (See below.)

These look like lower-line hubs, like Altus or Acera. Nothing fancy and perfectly usable providing you can find a Uniglide cassette to put on the rear hub.

vintageiron

Looks a lot like mid 80's Deore or early 105 equipment, (after the Deer head stuff), but I think in later years they had a lower end model that looked almost the same?
I had a 1986 Schwinn Super Sport with similar hubs, the rest of the bike was mostly 600EX but the hubs weren't marked.
I had a late 80's Nishiki Olympic with the same hubs as well.

verktyg 

Probably takes a 5 or 6 speed cassette which may be a little hard to find these days???

I've mounted Hyperglide cassettes on Uniglide freehubs. Just use a screw on Uniglide end sprocket.

It requires modifying the wide splines in the Hyperglide cassette.



Even mounted a 7 speed cassette on a 6 speed freehub by using 8 speed spacers (when I first started messing around with cassettes and didn't know better DOH!).


verktyg

T-Mar

The subject hubs are 2nd generation (post 1980) Shimano Altus.

malcala622

Thats the last time I use steel-vintage-bikes as a reference for parts.

wrk101

Uniglide free hub = totally obsolete. Unless you have a pile of Uniglide parts, I wouldn't touch that hub. The time and cost to build it up into a wheel just rewards you with the need to buy a ridiculously priced obsolete cassette. NOS Uniglide cassettes have commonly sold on fleece bay for $50 to $100. Meanwhile, brand new 7 and 8 speed hyperglide cassettes can be found on line for $12+/-.

And when your cassette needs to be replaced again in a few years, price will likely be significantly higher.

vintagerando

I have the 6 speed cassette that came with the hub/wheels. Cassette is hardly used.

cyclotoine

I have the shimano 600 version of this hub (black oil hole cover clip is easiest way to ID them) with a cassette that is near new. I can't give it away... so yeah, if anyone wants it for shipping from canada....

vintagerando

So, just to summarize.....what I have here are a set of highly functional, universally compatible, and widely sought-after set of hubs?

vintagerando

Here is the same hub advertized as "Shimano 600, 1st generation".

wrk101

Sell the cassette, give the buyer the hub for free. You will do very well on it.

bikemig 

ThermionicScott 

Track cogs have the same threading as the end of a Uniglide hub. If you don't mind modifying parts, you could in theory keep using a Uniglide hub forever by using a mix of HG cogs with the wide splines ground down, carefully chosen spacers in between, and a 13/14/15T 3/32" track cog on the end to hold it all together.

vintageiron

Didn't all the 600 series hubs have a black band decal recessed in the middle of the hub?
All of those I've owned were 14-28 cassettes in 6 speed and came from upper middle end bikes.

Jeff Wills

They can claim anything they want, but it's still not a Shimano 600 hub. As Vintage pointed out, a 600 hub would have a black band around the center of the hub shell and the finish would be much better. That black band might even be a spring clip covering at oil port.

1982 Shimano Catalogue Page 24

dddd

The OP's hubs were very commonly spec'd on otherwise 600-equipped bikes, so the hubs are commonly thought of as 600 hubs but are not.
I have always referred to them as "Model 60", but Shimano never called them that. The 6D looked like 60 to me.

My ~1980 Piaggio-Bianchi from Japan had these hubs with remaining parts real 600. The freehub body loosened on the hubshell "snout" that it was swaged onto, not catastrophic but made axle bearing adjustment into a more unfamiliar process. This was from before the freehub body was retained with the hollow threaded bolt.

I have never actually seen even one example of the high-flange 600 cassette hubset pictured above. I would probably buy a ton of them if I could.

verktyg 

I think that you are referring to the various 600 series hubs including the Tricolor and Ultegra that came out in the mid to late 80's. They had the recess that you mentioned and were available in both freewheel and freehub styles.




@Jeff Wills wrote:

"They can claim anything they want, but it's still not a Shimano 600 hub. As Vintage pointed out, a 600 hub would have a black band around the center of the hub shell and the finish would be much better. That black band might even be a spring clip covering at oil port."

Well yes and no depending on the year. Shimano 600 hubs first came out in 1976. They were billed as DuraAce hubs without the fancy finish. Not even close. About the only thing they had in common was the black spring clip over the oil hole (they were chrome plated on later DuraAce hubs).

I bought several sets for the shop plus one set for myself. The list price was $14.00 and our cost was $7.00. We had just started off road "rough stuff" riding with road bikes in Northern New Mexico and Southern Colorado. I built up a set of "cyclocross" wheels with the heaviest sewup rims I could find, 14 gage spokes and those 600 hubs. I wanted a heavy duty set of hubs that I didn't have to worry about trashing.





I kept bending the QR rear axle from jumping obstacles so I put in a Zeus solid track axle. It had the same 10mm x 1mm treads so I was able to use the Shimano cones and nuts. Fixed the problem. Carried 2 cut off 16mm wrenches.

I think what hubs the OP's are has been settled.

@dddd wrote:

"The OP's hubs were very commonly spec'd on otherwise 600-equipped bikes, so the hubs are commonly thought of as 600 hubs but are not.
I have always referred to them as "Model 60", but Shimano never called them that. The 6D looked like 60 to me.

My ~1980 Piaggio-Bianchi from Japan had these hubs with remaining parts real 600. The freehub body loosened on the hubshell "snout" that it was swaged onto, not catastrophic but made axle bearing adjustment into a more unfamiliar process. This was from before the freehub body was retained with the hollow threaded bolt."

Here's the 1st generation Shimano freehub.(from Sheldon Brown's website)





Everything you wanted to know about Shimano freehubs and cassettes:

Shimano Cassettes & Freehubs

verktyg

Jeff Wills

Thanks to you and Chas I think we have a better understanding of the situation.

And I'd buy a load of the high-flange hubs, too. They're pretty. I made my own by chopping off the disc mounts from a Deore XT hub and polishing the rest of the hub.

vintagerando

The consensus appears to point to a "lower end" model for these hubs. But, you know, looking at them and feeling how smooth they spin after +35yrs, you wouldn't know the hubs were lower on the hierarchy. They are just missing the "dura ace" or "600" stamp.

veganbikes

Just as an FYI I did replace an old uniglide freehub body with a modern hyperglide body on a 600 Tricolor hub. Possibly could be done here and I believe Sheldon has the info on how to do it. I cannot for the life of me remember what freehub body I used because I pulled one out of our aged inventory a year and a half ago but it was a mid range Shimano jobber. Wasn't a hard process from what I remember.