I am new as a bike mechanic. This winter I decided to replace all of the bearings on my 3 bikes, plus my wife's. The Trek was the 3rd one I worked on. On all the others, the balls came out easily with a magnet. When the right rear Shimano RSX wouldn't come out with the magnet, I pried out the first one, then of course the remaining balls came out with a magnet. Here I noticed that the grease was a dirty grey color. The other side was clear yellow grease. I didn't see anything unusual on the race. The balls looked to be the same size as the new 1/4" ones I was going to install.
Not being real experienced, I didn't think much of this. I replaced the balls with 9 new 1/4" balls, which should be the right size. Alas, when I put them in the last one had to be "pressed" in - with a small screwdriver. I didn't think much of this, assuming that maybe they would better seat when everything was assembled and properly adjusted. They seemed to adjust fine - the wheel is not loose, and it turns free.
In my mind, it seemed wrong for the balls to be tight like that - how would they be able to rotate freely without excessive friction? That, with the grey grease I noted, caused me to write on this forum.
I had never had anyone else work on this hub before. I did have my mechanic who sold me this bike replace a broken spoke on it once.
I looked up the technical specs, and everything looked the way my hubs looks.
Maybe I'll just run it the way it is. It seems the worst I could do is ruin an already ruined hub.
(01-30-2010, 09:49 AM)cyclerUK Wrote: RSX was the lower end of Shimanos road groups from around 1997.
It would probably be equivalent to todays Sora range.
I have just removed some RSX STI shifters after 10 years of good use.
Even so I don't understand, unless they are the wrong size balls, why there is the problem.
There won't be much of a gap but the balls should squeeze in nicely.