Quote:
Originally Posted by otto_kretschmer
So I started cleaning the Cannondale yesterday. I have to wait another week for the new stem to arrive. Yesterday I repacked the headset and today I did the same for the Cannondale's front wheel. One of the cones had some pitting so those wheels should be retired. I put the axel back in with the knowledge that there is an issue with that front wheel.
I decided to repack the Campy hubs on those BMX wheels I have. Upon inspection I saw some pitting and roughness on the small end of the cone. The races in the hub looked OK. I cleaned up the old grease and repacked with fresh and placed 10 balls in one side and put the cone in without the axel to see how it rotated and it felt wrong. I suspect someone a long time ago replaced the balls with a larger diameter. I put the axel together and it felt terrible, like there is sand in the bearings.
dum dee dumm....another mystery. I'm glad I caught this now before I laced up the new rims that are coming in next week.
I have two other front wheels to compare ball bearings with. I have the Shimano 105 on my Cannondale and I have the Campagnolo Record on my sister's race bike. I'll make a prediction right now that the balls on the BMX wheels are .020 larger than what they should be.
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sourcing the correct size and quality bearings will difficult locally. Quality is the key to those bearings for that hub. The typical bearings sold in the local bike shops are not polished well at all.
If you can use those Campy hubs, you are golden. They are good hubs. Oil holes in the center of the hub? If not, any modern Shimano (Ultegra) hubs will close to being as good as those old Campys, that's only IMO. It takes a lot to kill them. I have tried to kill off a set of Dura-Ace wheels I built for over 7-8 years. Over hauled the a couple times. Gone through some broken spokes and a set of rims over those years. I think I still have them. Bought factory build wheels after that and never looked back. I bought Mavic wheels usually.