genejockey 

I've been rebuilding my first road bike, a 1994 Cannondale R500, with RX100 components. The front wheel had a distinctly 'gravelly' feel when spinning, so I watched a bunch of videos on servicing cup and cone hubs, got me some cone wrenches and new bearings, and dove in. The NDS cone has pretty bad spalling on the bearing track, so I figured I'd order a new one. I went to the Wheels Manufacturing site, found what's supposed to be the right model (CN-R102). It came with a metal flange thingie where the old cones have a groove that holds two plastic sealing rings. The sealing rings are only a hair bigger than the cone itself, but the flange is much too wide. It won't fit through the dust seal on the hub, but also it's too small to serve as a dust seal. So I carefully drove it off the cone, and there is no groove for those little sealing rings.

So, what should I do? Is there a source for genuine mid-90s Shimano hub cones somewhere?

70sSanO

Here the process that I did to find what will work. Your RX100/A550 hub is not on the Shimano Cone Interchangeability Chart, but you can get to the cone P/N by Googling Shimano HB-RX100 that will take you to A550. From the tech docs you can find the cone P/N 202 9805. No one has that in stock. But that will take you to other Shimano hubs that use that cone including M450. I didn't check every possibility.

I found a used m450 hub on ebay that is not that expensive and uses the same cones, seals, etc. But it might be the best you can find. You can follow the steps above to verify. Here is the link...

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Exage-Front...YAAOSwG5teVCLk

John

cbrstar

I can see where the confusion is when you look at their chart HB_3300 (wheelsmfg.com) Even on the diagram they are different so basically they are getting you to change it from being semi sealed to unsealed. But if you check other charts like this Shimano Hub Cones and Axles Front - Buy Online - MoruyaBicycles.com.au You will notice that they use the same cone as they do on the more modern Sora hubs. And when you look up sora cones they have the seals that you are looking for. If you have a decent LBS in your area there's a really good chance that will have Sora cones kicking around for you to compare on the spot.

70sSanO

This got me to look back at the Shimano Cone Interchangeability Chart which I found here...

https://ebike.hu/dl/konusz-kompatibilitas.pdf

And looking closer I realized the 202 9805 Shimano diagram cone is listed as Y20298050 on the chart. And that is the number for a Sora hb-3300, but not for a rm40 which also uses the same fc-01 as listed by MoruyaBicycles. It would seem that the fc-01 is aftermarket, but I don't know.

John

genejockey 

THANKS, FOLKS!! Very useful!

Of course, nobody has the Sora cones either. So, I gather I COULD use the new cone I bought, but that would take my hub from being "Not-Really-Sealed" to "Really-Not Sealed". Hmmmm. I don't plan to ride this bike in any inclement weather, but it does get dusty here. And I'd have to be more careful washing....

cbrstar

When you look at your chart the same Shimano part# shows up for


HB-C201

HB-3300 Sora

HB-2200

HB-A416/410 (RSX) - old

HB-M475 (9mm) (Alvivo?)

HB-F700 (Capreo)

HB-CT91 (Atlus)


When I looked up the HB-C201 I got a different cone Wheels Manufacturing Inc. CN-R040 Cone - www.cyclelogicbikes.com So I checked it against a couple others HB_A416 (wheelsmfg.com) CN-R040 (RSX). This cone sounds a little bit more like the original with the seals.

70sSanO

Very good detective work!

It does have the groove for the seal.

John

genejockey 

EXCELLENT!!! This is great! I checked the RSX pdf on Wheels's site, and sure enough it's the same Shimano parts number, but they list CN-R040 instead of CN-R102.

And after a semi-exhaustive search, I found ONE available! Everyone else says "Out Of Stock" or "Back Ordered".

Good thing the rear cones were in good shape!

JohnDThompson 

If you can't find OEM Shimano cones, wrap a pipe cleaner around the axle and push it up close to the hub to act as a seal. It can work surprisingly well.