milkbaby

I got a new Easton EA90TT wheelset and moved a 10 speed Shimano cassette over to it from my old wheel. The only concern I have is the generic instructions that came with the wheels say to ONLY use a cassette with an alloy carrier/body that holds the cogs together and not to use individual cogs on the freehub. My cassette had the first 3 largest cogs in one piece together, but the rest were individual cogs separated with spacers. I am a newbie to this, but isn't having the separate cogs the way most 10 speed cassettes are put on the freehub? Thanks...

Al1943

Some are, some aren't. Be sure to put enough torque into the lockring, this will help keep the individual cogs from digging into the freehub splines. And be sure to use the 1 mm Shimano spacer at the back of the cassette.
You'll be fine.

HillRider

The problem with individual cogs, particularly large ones, is that they can bite into the freehub body outer shell if it's aluminum. Putting the cogs on a carrier spreads the load over a wider area and protects the body. Smaller cogs develop less torque so they are less damaging.

Shimano uses Ti or steel freehub bodies for most of their hubs and their one venture into an aluminum body used taller splines to spread the force from the cogs over a wider area.

As Al1943 noted, get the lockring good and tight to keep the cogs from moving individually.

milkbaby

Does the spacer go on first before the group of three largest cogs or is it last before you put on the lockring? I took the cassette off a Shimano wheel, but I didn't find a 1mm spacer after the largest cog. There was a very thin metallic "spacer" stuck on the lockring, but it seems less than 1mm thick. Now I'm paranoid because when I tighten the quick release it looks like it is squeezing the rear dropouts together by a little bit...

HillRider

The 1 mm spacer goes onto the freehub body first before any of the cogs. If you removed a 10-speed cassette, the spacer may be stuck inside a slight recess behind the largest cog and not be obvious. The metal foil "spacer" that's part of the lockring is just to help keep it tight.

reptilezs

i have not found a tight lockring to be considerably helpful in preventing cogs from digging into a al freehub. loose cog sets are easier to remove(easy to remove one cog at a time with 2 whips). cassette that are pinned or riveted are harder.

Al1943

On modern 8, 9, 10, 11 speed cassettes there should be no need to use a chain whip to remove cogs after the lockring has been removed.
It is very important to keep plenty of torque on the lockring, usually 30 to 50 K&M depending on the brand and model, and shown on the lockring.

gyozadude

Actually, on the Park Tool website, it shows that Shimano and other vendors torque specs for cassette lock rings is between 20 - 35 ft-lbs. That is NOT a lot of torque. It's snug. But not too tight. Most lock rings have teeth on the face that mates to the cassette small ring and prevents loosening. And the torque to drive the cassette is delivered by splines on the freehub. The lock ring is just to keep the cassette from sliding to the right. There isn't that much force, even when cross chaining. If you read some of the touring bike pages by Sheldon or others, they like cassettes because the lock ring is NOT that tight and allows for field service of spokes with just an simple 10 inch adjustable crescent wrench that will fit into the slots. Which is why Hillrider's advice about using a carrier that locks all the cogs in the cassette is crucial. The cogs are all mated and secured as a unit and should be that way to prevent any single cog from failure or causing damage to the freehub splines.

HillRider

Actually a torque 20-35 foot-pounds (40-50 N-m are the vendoor specs) is really quite tight as you can discover if you use a torque wrench to tighten the lockring. I've seen lockrings spontaneously loosen and let the cassette rattle if they aren't tightened sufficiently. "Snug" won't do.

Sheldon is correct but he was comparing the removal torque for a cassette to that for a freewheel which can be screwed on VERY tight and require a big wrench and a lot of force to remove.

Al1943

Hillrider did not recommend using a carrier that locks all of the cogs in a cassette. Go back and read that again. The fact is that most of the upper end cassettes, Ultegra, Dura-Ace, Chorus, Record, and many more have some single cogs not connected to any other cogs in the cassette. The single cogs are held in place by only the splines and the lock ring compression. These are usually the smaller cogs which have less leverage on the freehub splines than the smaller cogs but can still damage the splines of aluminum hubs if the lockring was not set with enough torque. And there are exceptions, the 25 cog on an Ultegra 13-25 is a single cog. The lockring needs plenty of torque, as recommended by the hub or cassette manufacturer. Loose cogs can be noisy and if loose enough can cause poor indexing.

HillRider

That's correct, i didn't recommend it, I just noted that most cassettes have their larger cogs grouped on carriers. Their smaller cogs are mostly individuals.

Are you sure about the 13x25 having a loose 25T cog? I had a 13x25 9-speed Shimano cassette and believe the 21,23 and 25 cogs were on a single carrier. I have both 12x25 and 12x27 105-level 10-speed cassettes and I know for sure the top three cogs are all joined on a common carrier.

One cassette that does use all loose cogs is the Campy 10-speed Veloce even in 13x29 format. However, Campy uses deep splines on their aluminum freehub bodies and I've never had any notching from it. I do get the lockring as tight as Campy recommends.

time bandit

It'll be fine. To remove just put the wheel between two sawhorses, cassette side down and just lightly tap the cogs loose from behind through the spokes.

milkbaby

I did some more googling and also looked at the Easton website, and the freehub body that came on my new wheels is the red colored "R4 All Shimano 10 speed" listed here: https://www.eastoncycling.com/bike/wp...Body-Chart.pdf (not the SRAM/Shimano 9&10 speed compatible freehub body). In their FAQ (https://www.eastoncycling.com/en-us/r...qs/wheel-faqs/), it says this freehub body is Shimano 10 speed only, so I don't need the 1mm spacer behind the cassette.

The one thing that is weird to me is that the cassette came off a Shimano RS-10 wheel that came stock on my bike and was missing the 1mm spacer. All the sites that I've found selling this Shimano wheel say it is 8/9/10 speed compatible. Is this a rare mistake?

mrrabbit 

milkbaby:

Follow Al1943 and Hillrider's guidelines...especially regarding the lockring torque. They nail this issue down on a regular basis for folks. If you find yourself losing sleep regardless, just pop off the cassette after a few miles of use - post a pic of the freehub - I'm sure they'll be able to tell you if it's looking okay or not.

It's been done here before...

=8-)

Al1943

The Shimano tech document for 6500 cassettes shows that the 13-25 and 13-23 cassettes both had single large cogs (25 or 23). I've assumed this was because they had no single 16 6500 cogs, the 16 is pinned together with the 17. The 19-21-23 or 18-19-21 cogs are mounted on common carriers. All of those sets were also used on other cassettes. It was probably more economical to use a single large cog on the 13-25 and 13-21. I have built a 13-25 using parts from a 12-25 and a single 16.
BTW the 14-25 is shown to have a single 23 and single 25.

gyozadude

If that is not "recommending" a carrier to connect all the cogs, then why would you post it? The reasoning is exactly sound, and it is a de facto recommendation of why a carrier is superior that distributes load over ones that don't.

This is all related to what is considered a "LOT" of torque to put on the lock ring. And yes, compared to freewheels, the torque is not much, but in reality, the torque of just 25 ft-lbs is not very much. I can exert that much with the palm of my hand using a short rachet driver with extender on a spark plug. So it all depends on how much and for what purpose. Without the splines in place, such a light torque probably doesn't exert much face-pressure on the small portion of the cogs on a cassette. This means that steel cogs will necessarily dig into soft metal on an alloy body where it contacts the splines. And if the intent is to tighten down the lock-ring to minimize the digging into splines on the freehub body, then I'm saying that's not a good idea. It's not the purpose of the lockring and it likely won't stop the digging into splines because the torque by a big rider on 170+ mm cranks on a ring like that will exceed the lockring face pressure and slip.

So putting more torque into lock rings isn't the proper solution but may strip insides of freehubs or the lock ring itself. We need to look at the application of racing components and ask ourselves if they are designed around interchangeability and lightness as opposed to durability. And maybe it will work for racers who average sub 160lbs, and ride new stuff constantly. But I'd be wary about relying on snugging down a cassette lockring to put face pressure on cogs to avoid having them dig into the body.

Drew Eckhardt 

A lot of the Shimano cassettes which don't start with an 11 or 12 have a loose cog on the end.

9 speed 13-23 Ultegra cassettes end in a loose 23
9 speed 13-25 Ultegra cassettes end in a loose 25
9 speed 14-25 Ultegra cassettes end in a loose 23 followed by a loose 25

etc.

gyozadude

There's nothing wrong with a "loose" cog when it's slipped onto a steel freehub. I thought the issue here was avoiding digging in with cogs slipped onto alloy freehub bodies. And my comment was that I'm wary of folks torquing down the lockring to use friction to hold the cog in this specific case. On most everything else, I think we're in agreement.

HillRider

Interesting and thanks for the correction. I built a custom 13x27 9-speed Shimano cassette from a 12x27 by discarding the 12 and 13T first two cogs, using a 13T first position cog (recovered from an older 13x25) and filling in with a single 16 and it's spacer. I LOVE the 16T cog!!!.

BTW, where did you get your single 16T 8 or 9-speed cog since either will do? I got one 9-speed from Branford Bike back before their fire and one was donated by another forumite. I've never been able to find them since.

Al1943

I picked up a couple from Sheldon Brown several years ago. I took another single 16 from a low mileage XTR cassette. My favorite 9-speed cassette is a 13-26 that I made from Ultegra, D-A, and XTR parts, close ratios, very light and works great.

HillRider

Sheldon Brown (Harris Cyclery) was my first contact when I was looking for a single 16T cog in early 2006 but even then, they no longer had them available and Harris wrote that even they didn't know where to get them.

tanguy frame

16T rules. Campy Chorus 12-25 has a 16T cog. When i switched to 11-25 I gave up the 16. I'm always switching between 15 and 17 to get comfortable. Is 11T worth giving up 16T? not sure. My front is 34-50. Campy lockring specs is 50Nm. How tight is that with a 12 inch cresent wrench?