timsch

I just repacked the bearings with Shimano Spin Doctor grease. I put a fair amount in there to hold the bearings in place, and then a bit more on top of them before installing the cone. There's a bit more drag than I'd like spinning the wheel after assembly.

Is too much grease a self correcting issue? It seems any excess might just be forced down to the center of the axle, but I don't know for sure.

79pmooney

Is this a fair weather bike or will it see miles in the rain, etc? Yes, more grease does add a little drag on the bearings but enough grease so you get some squeezed out at the axle means you have a watertight seal as good as the grease you used. (Marine grease and you will probably be able to ride the hub a few inches under water. But do your bottom bracket and pedals too unless they have good seals because the will go deeper!)

I ride all my bikes in Pacific northwest weather. All get marine grease for the non-sealed bearings so I don't have to track which bike has what,

MudPie

I do what you did, and I like to see grease oozing out. You may feel a bit more drag when spun my your fingers, but as long as it spins smoothly (with no play), all is goo. Excess grease will work its way out, and better to have too much grease than too little, IMHO.

timsch

Thanks all.

Andrew R Stewart 

Any excess grease will be pushed aside by the action of the balls. Andy

Crankycrank

Agree with all of the above. Too much is better than too little and as mentioned any excess will just push its way past the seals. The bearing drag will go away after the first ride as bearings retain only what's necessary to keep them lubed properly and push away the rest. Excess grease that remains against the inside of the seals also helps a little to keep out moisture.

base2 

I see what you did there.

davidad

Much ado about nothing. Ride it and the grease problem will correct itself. Spinning by hand means nothing, only loaded matters.

Chuck M 

I've seen very few things harmed by too much grease before. But none of them have been bikes.

drlogik 

Too much grease isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it isn't good either, it presses out and makes a mess and attracts dirt and grit but that's about it. I finger-in just enough grease to fill the voids and then close it up.

SurferRosa

Are you using skewers? The hubs need to be a tiny bit loose before you lock down your skewers.

KerryIrons

Depends on the hub. I have run this experiment with several different hubs. Lower quality hubs demonstrate this. With Campagnolo Record hubs, clamping the skewers does not change bearing adjustment at all.

base2 

If the cones & the locknuts are properly bound against each other & the proper adjustment is achieved, why would the proper adjustment change when squeezed by a skewer? What then is the point of the locknut if not to bind against the cone to hold the adjustment?

79pmooney

The force in a QR skewer is a lot. The skewer steel stretches. And, the axle steel compresses. Not as much; there is more steel in the axle than the skewer but it does compress. With a look at the skewer geometry and hand force to close the lever, calculating the stretch of the skewer and compression of the axle is a simple exercise in a junior year engineering class. So a bearing that was right on is now a little too tight. With good bearings you won't feel this in the ride but the races and cones notice.

SurferRosa

Strongly disagree. Most of my bikes use Campy Record hubs, and I always adjust for preload. It's a bigger issue in the rear. The front skewer isn't locked down as tightly.

SurferRosa

It's one of those things of physics that I cannot easily explain, but it is something that I learned very early when I first started working on my own bikes.

70sSanO

I'm in the same camp. My personal preference is to adjust so there is a skosh, (a highly scientific and technical term), amount of play that disappears, or not perceivable, when the QR skewer is tighten.

But there will never be a consensus. For everyone who leaves no play and 30 years later the hubs are perfect, there will be someone who leaves a slight amount, that goes away when the QR is tightened, and 30 years later the hubs are perfect.

There was an endless thread a number of years ago that discussed the impact a QR skewer on a hub. It ranged all over the place and included axle material type and axle deflection. Personally, I think there are so many parts that make up a hub, especially threaded interfaces, and the QR just takes up all those minute tolerances. I mean we are probably talking thousandths of an inch difference.

John

mitchmellow62

https://www.sheldonbrown.com/cone-adjustment.html

Sheldon said it so it's got to be true!

79pmooney

See my post above. Steel is a classic "elastic" material. If you apply a force to it, it will deform like rubber, just less. That's any force, not just big ones. The magic number is 30,000,000 pounds to create one inch of deflection per inch of material. That is, if you apply 1 pound of either compression or tension to a 1" cube of steel, it will compress or stretch 1/30,000,000 of that inch. Reduce the cube to the cross section of a hub axle and the compression is multiplied by the difference. Likewise if you make that axle 4" long instead of 1". (30E6. Engineers go to their graves with it etched in their brains. Aluminum 10E6. Titanium somewhere in the middle - not in use commercially in the '70s when these numbers were being stamped into my brain. And exactly why all skewers should be steel if you want clamping force.)

Yes, the final number is small. But what you feel at the rim is that number multiplied by 20.

KerryIrons

You're right. I did a bunch of tests with Campy Record hubs back in the day. Steel axles and zero compression. I just tried it with my current Record hubs and changing the force on the QR clamp changed the play in the hub. Sorry to quote old information.