- The freehub body, often called the cassette body,
is this central part of the hub
that the cassette sits on top of.
Now it's primary job is to allow the drive train to work,
and also disengage, allow you to free wheel.
Inside this, the typical type of free hub body
has a pawl and ratchet system.
Just in general use, it's gonna get gunked up,
and it becomes a bit slow, a bit draggy,
and sometimes it can even slip.
You don't have to do full hub service to make this work.
Here's the real quick way to make sure that your
freehub body is clean, well lubricated, and doesn't stick.
(kicking up gravel)
Most hubs have a very similar system inside,
except for certain DT hubs, and of course,
the famous Chris King hub.
All other hubs tend to have a pawl and ratchet system.
You have a ratchet disc on the inside of the hub,
and you have pawls that are located
on springs on the part of the cassette body,
and all that happens is those pawls
allows to move up and down,
and locate with the indents on that disc.
Nice and simple, very easy to maintain,
and it is something you should all do.
For this video, we're using a FSA rear wheel here,
and it's got a Sram XD driver on it.
It's a fairly simple set up and it's very common.
It's got cartridge bearings in here.
It's got two sort of cone adjusted endcaps on the end here,
you use cone spanners to remove, and a little preload ring.
Nice and simple.
Again, I wanna emphasise the point
you don't need to do a full hub service
just to clean your free hub body out.
Of course, if you're doing a hub service, you're gonna
be pulling out the bearings and
replacing those, taking the axle system out.
This is literally a real, super fast way of
doing this at home yourselves.
Step one is obviously removing
your rear wheel from your bike.
You're gonna take the cassette off,
and I would recommend taking off the disc rotor,
because you don't want any contamination
there from degreasers and oils and
other sort of stuff you're using.
Put those aside.
Make sure they're completely separate
from where you're working.
Next job is to remove your end cap from the hub.
On this particular hub, it's got a
17 ml cone span of sorts on both sides,
but I don't need to remove the whole axle,
so I'm going to take the axle out
with the free hub body on it.
I need to remove the end cap and
lay it down on a bit of shop towel on the working surface.
Just so I can clean it.
And keep it all in order for when I replace it afterwards.
This particular hub has got a little preload ring
with a two and a half ml Allen key,
so it's not a preload ring in the sense
that it preloads the bearings,
like it would have done in old cup and cone bearing days.
It's literally just to make the axle is secure
against the bearings so there's no play.
I'm gonna loosen that off.
And then unwind the collar.
And again, put this on the work surface.
Keep everything in the same order
as you remove it from the bike.
The next step, you have to be a bit more careful because
the pawl system is actually very easy to lose small parts.
I'm gonna spin it round and then
be very careful as I slide it out.
This system, it comes out,
I wanna make sure I get the axle straight out of the hub.
I'm gonna put the wheel aside for a second,
and then lay that down carefully there.
We're gonna look at the hub first,
before we take care of the rest of the parts.
Know that you can see the cartridge bearing
on the inside of the hub here.
This is really important to take note of.
Whatever you're gonna use to clean it with,
it's gonna be some sort of solvent.
Make sure that you do not get this all around the bearing,
because that's just gonna destroy all the grease
and break it down that's in there,
and that bearing will wear out a lot faster.
What I'd recommend is using some degreaser but
actually putting it on to a bit of shop towel,
and using that to wipe all the surfaces clean inside.
That way it doesn't actually affect the bearing inside.
Everything's going to be working fine.
It's pretty clean but I'm not quite happy with it,
'cause there's a few little bits of gunk
trapped in the little nooks.
I'm gonna use a screwdriver and wrap the shop towel
around the end of it so it doesn't scratch anything.
Do take care, though, 'cause it's really important
that the edges stay really sharp.
Because that is vital to how well this engagement works.
Take your time, work your way around,
and get out all of that sorta crap that sits in there.
Basically, a repeat of the last step.
I don't really wanna go flushing any of this crap out
by spraying degreaser on it because
there are bearings housed inside the
axle XD driver body that the axle rotates on.
What I do wanna do is make sure that
all of the little pores that
the ports sit into are nice and clean.
The springs are clean.
There's nothing adding any unnecessary friction in there.
I'm gonna work my way around the free hub here,
and remove each one of the pawls and the springs inside
so I can actually clean them properly.
I can see, although it's quite clean,
it's quite gunky in there.
Gonna give it a real decent clean.
Be very careful when you remove them because
you don't want the springs to fire out because
they can be a real pain to find.
There's a first pull out.
The pawl is out now, I wanna remove the spring.
In this case, you tuck them all the way around,
and they slide out nice and easy.
Repeat that process all the way around the hub.
Some of them can be a little bit fiddly,
if they've been stuck in place.
Make sure you're nice and gentle.
Just like cleaning the internals of the hub,
I don't wanna be spraying degreaser straight onto that.
I'm gonna spray it on to the shop towel
and work my way around the whole unit,
and make sure I've got (sprays)
all the little bits of gunk and
the bad stuff in there cleaned out.
And again, I might need to use a screwdriver
to whittle my way into all those little gaps.
But the idea is I want this thing
looking virtually like new on the inside.
Do the same with each and every pawl and spring.
And then, of course, it's time to reassemble them.
I'm pretty happy with that, it's all nice and clean now.
It's a case of reversing the process,
putting the springs back in and each of the pawls back in.
Make sure you're very delicate doing this.
You don't want to lose any of those parts.
I made sure if there are any sort of
retaining springs in place on
your particular freehub design,
make sure it all clicks back in place,
and you can actually actuate each individual one
to make sure they're operating correctly.
I'm gonna systematically work my way around.
A little drop of lube on the pawl side
and actuate it, and again, by the spring.
Make sure that it's nice and fast.
Again, that's the whole point of this,
is that you're not using a thick, horrible lube,
or a thick grease because that's
gonna slow these things down and
they're never actually gonna engage correctly.
I don't need to run too much oil in there.
It's just enough to make sure things
keep working nice and smoothly.
I'm literally gonna put a couple drops of oil
onto the actual ratchet ring itself.
Probably enough there.
I'm gonna carefully reinstall the axle
back through the cartridge bearings.
Locate it and then before the pulls
reinstall fully, that is the point now that I'm actually
gonna run a little bit more lube around the outside here,
before I click it back into place.
And that is sufficient with the sealing there,
to keep it all in the right place.
I'm gonna do that on a few bits,
and that will be enough there.
Click that back into place.
(clicking)
Hear a nice, decent engagement.
Nice and loud, which suggests that
the springs are doing their job properly.
That is the basic pull overhaul done.
Last step, of course, if I spin the wheel 'round here,
is to put that preload ring back in place
to make sure that the axle is
nice and snug up against the bearing.
And you can do, just finger tight,
and then make sure the axle rotates nice and smoothly.
Get your two and a half ml Allen key,
of course it's different on different hubs.
That's what it is on this particular case.
Don't need a pinch bolt to stop it rattling loose,
don't need to excessively tighten this.
And then get the end cap back on, and it's located.
Job done.
There you go, that's a super quick video
on how to stop your freehub body being sticky
and work a little bit better.
If you want to find out everything
about changing a cassette, that's removing one
and putting one back on again, click right down here.
And if you wanna know about servicing bearings,
another step in the hub service, click right up here.
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