I work in a very small local shop, and see a fair number of cassette hubs. Someone from a bigger shop certainly sees more, and may have a different outlook.
There isn't much need to lubricate them, if it's needed, some decent spray lube like pedros extra dry will do it just fine. Or light oil dripped in, which is a bit slower. There's no need to remove the freehub body from the hub, unless it has problems.
The special tool is needed for the older ones, but they aren't needed very often. The newer ones come off with a 10mm allen wrench, so nothing special needed there.
There is also a special tool to take the newer freehub body apart, I have one, and it's something you'd use about as often as you'd rebuild a freewheel. The old ones unthread from the back, and the special tool would probably be needed to take it apart as well as to remove it.
But the old freehub body I'm looking at right now operates reasonably well, even though the outer body is split on one side for its full length. Looks like someone tried to remove it with a pipe wrench! so they really don't need much lubing or taking apart.
So, it depends on how "complete" a mechanic you want to be. Personally, I like having as many odd or obsolete tools as I can find and afford, but there's lots of people doing just fine without them.
Steve Birmingham Lowell, Massachusetts United States of America
Date: Tue, 18 Mar 2008 06:10:13 -0700 (PDT) From: Jerome & Elizabeth Moos <jerrymoos@sbcglobal.net> To: classicrendezvous@bikelist.org Subject: [CR]Lubricating and Removing Cassette Hubs Message-ID: <887372.46181.qm@web82206.mail.mud.yahoo.com> In-Reply-To: <380-22008311721835172@M2W038.mail2web.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Precedence: list Message: 6
I'm a bit embarrassed by my lack of knowledge in this regard, but what is the best way to lubricate a cassette hub? One reason for my ignorance is that that I only have I think four of these, unless you count early forerunners of the cassette like Wiley-Bayliss or Helicomatic. I just acquired an On-Topic Dura Ace EX hubsets to add to one AX hubset. The only place I can see to add lubricant is between the axle and cassette at the outside end of the cassette. Is there another place to lubricate? Are modern cassettes lubricated in the same manner as the On-Topic DA EX and AX?
Also I recently saw a cassette body removal tool on eBay. I must confess I'd never thought before about the need to remove the cassette body from the hub, and frankly wasn't even sure this was possible. Is this something one is actually likely to need to do? Do I need such a tool to consider myself a complete bicycle mechanic?
Regards,
Jerry Moos
Big Spring, Texas, USA