Quiet hub.....gear oil?
 

Hi all. I've read a series of threads tonight regarding the use of Mobil 1 to lube the pawls on sealed bearing hubs, anyone ever use gear oil?

I had a quart or so of royal purple 75w-140 from a recent ford rear diff service. For the sake of curiosity I put a small amount in a velocity race hub tonight that was getting pretty loud, and it's quiet as a church mouse.

Do I need to add any grease to the oil, or is there any concern about using oil in on the pawls. Does it make sense to partially fill the cavity given it is sealed???

Thanks in advance for your thoughts.

You dont need to fill it but a bit of gear oil will be fine. I dont like grease because it can cause the pawls to hang up. Its bad when that happens.

Conventional pawls, little levers with a spring of some sort to hold them 'up', when gunked enough, can stick down. And the cavity isn't really 'sealed'. If it gets cold enough with enough dirt in with the gear oil(pretty thick), pawls can stick down..and that's always bad..it 'may' lead to the next one getting broken.

Thanks for the input, I'll swap it out with a lighter weight oil.

Much appreciated as always.

Jay

They are talking about grease, the gear oil you put is thick but IMO not that thick... I would just leave it.

Thanks Ultraman. I'll let it go for a while and check it out. As easy as it is to remove the free hub, there is really no reason not to give it a try, and check on it intermittently.

Thanks again all.

He is definitely referring to Mobil 1 motor oil, not grease.

OP-- Any kind of lightweight oil is going to work fine, I do think gear/differential oil may be a bit too heavy, I've had best luck with a very thin oil for most freehubs, like pro-link/water weight oils. Mavic pawls seem to be the most sensitive in my experience.

I know what oil is he taking about... thats one of the brands I use in my cars... the diferential oil eventhought is different than motor oil will be more suited IMO than motor oil if he is going to use it in the freehub body.

Thats why i was suggesting just to leave that diferential oil, it wont dry or get like greasy as motor oil because differential oil is not disigned to work extra hot like regular motor oil is... thats why people just use mobil one thinned.

Transmission oil is super nice but is too watery IMO for any bike application.

There is a oil for chainsaws, that one needs to be thinned just a tad, nice stuff.

I'd be careful of chainsaw oil. Especially these days it's being made more and more of non-petroleum products (because so much of it gets sprayed or spilled on vegetation and the ground and ends up in creeks).

Frankly, the pawls have to move very fast and with little resistance. If one goes bad, just once, you can lose engagement and have a bad fall or break the free hub. I'd put hub noise low on the priority list when picking lubricants. Something like TriFlow can be sprayed into the free hub and clean it out well and provide adequate lubrication for virtually all conditions. It may be a little noisier, but taking a risk with a bad pawl engagement isn't really the way to fix the noise problem, in my humble opinion.

depends on the hub.

i use 90W gear oil in DT hubs with the ratchets, and King hubs. for pawl typed hubs, i use a light motor oil.

just overhauled a set of new to me DT hubs a few weeks ago. All told, DT make my favorite set of hub internals. simple, easy to work on and damned reliable.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-T5Q1SrP_Qw...0/IMG_0580.JPG

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-iY8Nfsdbs9...0/IMG_0581.JPG

Last I looked, Chris King recommended only their ringlube and TriFlow. They made a point that any heavier lubricants could cause the free hub to fail.

I use synthetic gear oil on Campy hubs. Works great--Apply lightly yet thoroughly.

another classic case of theory vs practice.

in practice, i can assure you that hypoid gear oil is a fine alternative for CK hubs.

but then again, i've never been a "by the book" guy, and i'm pretty familiar with lubrication across a pretty broad platform of applications; and as it turns out, bicycle hubs are pretty low on the "pushing the envelope" technology scale.