Your message reminds me of something I heard a few years back. While I don't remember all the specifics, the general idea is this:
Sometime in the mid 1990's we received a letter at the LBS where I worked that idicated Phil Wodd hubs were being counterfeited somewhere in Asia. I'm fraid that I don't remember much else, other than that the message said the bogus hubs were pretty easy to identify. In any case, this was later than the era of your difficulty with flange failures, but it's interesting nonetheless.
<snip>
I have never
> > figured out why Campy, Shimano et al never made
> hubs this simple and
> > reliable. Easily-contaminated greasy loose ball
> bearings - We've come a long
> > way since then!
I humbly differ. Check out Sutherland's comments on cartridge vs. cup & cone hub bearings. Essentially he says that radial bearings, as foud on most cartridge-bearing hubs, are good at supporting radial loads but lousy at supporting axial loads. If the bearing is preloaded enough to eliminate play at the rim, it is only because the inner and outer races are shearing the balls. Failure quickly follows. A properly set up Phil, or MAVIC, or what have you, will have play at the rim. While I find such play annoying, it is not so terrible, but with a "conventional" hub this play is unnecessary. I give Shimano a great deal of credit for sticking with a cup and cone design on this particulay bearing. It looks like Campy has switched over to cheaper-to-produce generic cartridges, at least on the top-end stuff. I further give credit to Shimano for knowing where to apply cartridge bearings. Specifically, at the BB where the load is almost completely axial. In addition, they have done a good job at replicating the oblique bearing geometry of a conventional headset within a disposable cartridge.
As for the notion that cup and cone hubs are easily contaminated, such is simply no longer the case. Ride a Dura Ace or XTR hub for a year, open it up, and tell me what you see. These hubs are no more easily contaminated than most cartridge models, and far easier to clean out if they are.
Tom Dalton
> Bob:
>
> If he had used Maxi-Car hubs, he wouldn't have had
> to worry about removing the
> freewheel!
>
> Chris Beyer
> $0 today if we're lucky in Bloomfield, NJ
>
> Ebbikes@aol.com wrote:
>
> > I too have ridden Phil hubs continuously since
> 1975, when I built up my first
> > set for my Bikecentennial ride in '76. They
> performed perfectly, and I rode
> > those wheels for another 5 years or so. Until
> about 8 years ago, the hubs
> > were three-piece, with a steel barrel and aluminum
> flanges. They changed the
> > design of the flanges somewhere around 1980, from
> machined to cast aluminum,
> > and the flanges on the threads started shearing
> off under pressure from the
> > torque of the freewheel. I had it happen on my
> first mountain bike and my
> > tandem, around 1981 or 2, and saw several others.
> But of course they always
> > took care of them under warrantee, and eventually
> went back to a forged and
> > machined design, with greater thread contact on
> the shell. The current
> > design, with field-serviceable bearings in an
> all-forged aluminum shell, is
> > by far the best, and I still recommend them
> wholeheartedly. I have never
> > figured out why Campy, Shimano et al never made
> hubs this simple and
> > reliable. Easily-contaminated greasy loose ball
> bearings - We've come a long
> > way since then!
> >
> > On Bikecentennial, a friend of mine had a broken
> drive-side spoke outside
> > Virginia City, MT, and I saw him on the side of
> the road trying to get his
> > freewheel off without the help of the little cup
> that Phil provided to
> > prevent extracting the axle. You guessed it, he
> extracted his axle and had
> > to hitch in to West Yellowstone to buy a
> replacement wheel. Had I known then
> > what I know now, I would have just tapped the axle
> back in and he would have
> > been back on the road.
> >
> > By the way, for many years Phil sold QR's with
> Campy Record ends and their
> > own stainless skewers. They can't get the Campy
> ends any more, but they
> > still will provide the skewers. I built a
> near-symmetric 130-spaced Record
> > HIgh-Flange (yes, 28-spoke) wheel a couple years
> ago for my "Retro" titanium
> > bike so used the Phil skewer with a flat lever.
> You can get them in any
> > length that QR hubs are made in.
> >
> > Bob Freeman
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Classicrendezvous mailing list
> > Classicrendezvous@bikelist.org
> >
>
http://www.bikelist.org/
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Classicrendezvous mailing list
> Classicrendezvous@bikelist.org
>
http://www.bikelist.org/
__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Photos - Share your holiday photos online!
http://photos.yahoo.com/