sd5782 

I am a C&V guy and therefore have nearly always dealt with freewheels. When adjusting bearings after replacing I know that any lateral slop at the rim is directly from the axle bearing adjustment.

Now onto my newer experiences with freehubs. I know the inner body bolts to the hub, and the outer body has small bearings and adjusts to the inner by way of shims. The drive side outer 1/4” bearings take the load. Am I correct to assume that any lateral play at the rim also reflects how close the freehub inner and outer pieces are adjusted by way of the shims plus the adjustment of the cones?

cxwrench

Freehub shims? Never heard of them...what kind of hub do you have?

Iride01 

Are you talking about the thin shims that go between the freewheel and the hub boss that they screw onto? If so, probably not the issue you are describing. Unless I misunderstand your issue, which is a possibility. <grin>

I think freewheel shims were a thing occasionally back in the heyday of freewheels when a 5 speed freewheel was top tier stuff.

Edit,

Oh wait, you are intermixing free hub and freewheel. I'm going to have to go back, finish my coffee and re-think your post. <grin>

Iride01 

Okay, finished the first cup of coffee. Ready for another stab at this.

No, the free hubs I know anything about don't have shims that you use to adjust spacing tolerances. You just adjust the cones if you have such type bearings.

What are you calling lateral play? Are you just pushing on the rim and seeing movement? That's a poor way IMO to judge lateral runout. For one, the distance from hub to rim greatly magnifies the amount of movement you see. And even if you are looking at the hub while pushing the rim to one side, then you are seeing about double the amount of actual runout because the other side is being pushed in the opposite direction.

So where does that leave us? Essentially you can have a little play and everything is good. No play whatsoever and you might actually be harming things.

smd4

Glad I wasn't the only one to wonder what he was talking about re "shims."

ThermionicScott 

No, freehub bearing adjustment doesn't affect play at the rim. It only affects how much play the cassette will show relative to the rest of the wheel.

smd4

Any "lateral play" at the rim is a function of axle adjustment. In my case (DA 7700 9 sp freehub), the axle adjustment is straight-up cup-and-cone adjustment. No shims involved whatsoever. With the wheel off the bike, I try to adjust the cup-and-cones to have a very slight bit of play--such that, when I install the wheel and tighten the quick release, the compression takes up the remaining amount of axle play.

As I recall, the freehub body attaches with a hollow bolt. I've never gotten into the freehub body itself.

alcjphil

Shimano freehubs do have shims in the body similar to the thin shims inside a freewheel. I have overhauled a couple of Shimano freehubs in the past. The freehubs of my Campagnolo wheels do not have shims like that

smd4

The manual for the FH-7700 doesn't show an exploded view for the freehub body, making me think it's non-servicable. Glad I've never had to open mine up.

sd5782 

Here we go. Yes, this bike has an old uniglide 6 speed free hub. I watched an RJ video on switching it over to a 7 speed hyperglide. As this was done, he had to switch some internal shims under the screw in bearing cups to get the adjustment of the freehub where he wanted it. It was then I realized that the drive side axle 1/4” bearings were riding in the freehub outer shell and not really bolt directly to the hub body as on a freewheel.

I did bearing service on this freehub and of course adjusted the axle cones and bolted up the wheel in the frame with the QR. pushing the rim side to side checking play gave an almost imperceptible amount of play. That is when I wondered about the freehub architecture. I guess it seemed that even with a proper adjustment there could be machining tolerance differences as the bearing race bolts to the freehub outer body which in turn abuts the inner body.

The adjustment seems good but I was just wondering. With a freewheel, the axle bearing races are right in the hub whereas in the freehub, they are separated by another mechanism. Hope I explained it a bit better. I may also go crank the cone adjustment down a wee bit to see. My one other freehub bike has zero movement. This one has only a slight perception of lateral play at the rim.

KCT1986

Yes, this seems to be correct. So a freehub body that has wear/improper adjustment of the inner bearings/shim/screw-in cup would have an effect on the axle 'feel'. Seems that would be noticeable if you check for 'play' between the cassette and the hub. If you look at the EV tech docs on Shimano's site for some of the early freehubs (1980s era), it shows the inside of the freehub body.

sd5782 

I was thinking just slight manufacturing tolerances too. This bike/freehub is very low miles. Any extra parts in the system introduces more tolerance error. I’m just learning a new mechanical system which is part of the fun, but only in nice quality stuff.