twitch
I exchanged some mail with the LBS I bought the squeaky dynamo hub from, and as part of a discussion they implied that 2500 miles was too far™ to ride it without repacking it. So, because I was going down there anyway (to pick up an el-cheapo silver stem to replace the black one that’s on the MLCM right now) I decided I’d pick up a couple of cone wrenches and pull apart the user-serviceable side of the hub to see if all the grease had come out and if I had to replace the bearings.
When I got the user-serviceable side apart, I first noticed that it was still full of grease – Filthy grease – but that the bearings were fine. But I discovered a second and much more interesting thing when I started mopping out the old grease; there was a little irregularly shaped aluminum droplet tucked into a glob of grease on the bearing side of the labyrinth seal. An irregularly shaped droplet, except for one side, which had been ground flat and shiny, as if it had been scraping against something for some time now.
*twitch*
Gotta love that quality control.
I can’t help but wonder what might be stuffed into the NON-user-serviceable bearing on the other side (it’s not user servicable because Shimano apparently uses delicate wires to carry the current out to the power plug, and if you disassemble that cup+plug+cone assembly too enthusiastically the little wires will snap and trash your generator.) I’ll just put the wheel back onto the bike and ride it to work and back tomorrow – if something else is going to start going *ping!* 30 miles should be enough to coax it out of its cave.
The wheel does spin more smoothly now that I’ve stuffed it to wafer-thin-mint levels with teflon-loaded grease. I’ll just have to remember to keep repacking it periodically to flush out any other junk that the assembly process left in it.
And I’ll have to think seriously about replacing it with a SON hub, or to start carrying a couple of cone wrenches and some grease on brevets, or both.