This microspline freehub quit working on me mid-ride. I took off the wheel and the end cap and pawls easily fell out. What would cause a relatively new freehub to fall apart like this?
by funnyguyfungi
This microspline freehub quit working on me mid-ride. I took off the wheel and the end cap and pawls easily fell out. What would cause a relatively new freehub to fall apart like this?
by funnyguyfungi
5 Comments
It would appear as though the wheel was not properly secured in the frame and had too much play causing this to happen. It’s not a big deal, you should be able to get new springs.
Doesn’t look totally broken by any means. These freehubs can pop off easily, gotta make sure they’re engaged before tightening down axle. Or the thru axle was loose and everything came apart, springs got crunched
Did you or someone else service this hub since you’ve had it? *I’m 99% sure your pawls are in upside down.*
The stepped teeth would normally engage with the drive ring. Flipping the pawls would also secure the springs better, as it will place the springs between more parallel faces, rather than such an acute angle. The pawls likely have a nub or hole that helps with spring retention.
You should buy some new springs from the hub manufacturer. Those ones are wrecked, obviously. If the pawls are upside down, you should replace them as well, as that would have exposed them to a lot of weird forces and wear.
The pawls and freehub body look fine. The 3 pawl springs are ruined, and it’s unlikely you managed to do that just by pulling the freehub body off. Somehow at least one spring got loose and then jammed in the ratchet and shredded. Then the uneven pawl engagement torqued the freehub body over and knocked loose at least one other spring.
As to why, here is my guess. That looks like heavy marine grease–too viscous for those pawl springs to push back to engage quickly. There may be a specified grease for that freehub. But generally a light lithium grease will work better with those springs.
You can buy specific replacement springs for that freehub. If you’re patient you can find generic springs on AliExpress.
Those pawls are installed in the freehub upside down, however I imagine they weren’t actually run like that as it doesn’t look like they would fit into the hub like this. Any chance they fell out of the freehub when you took it off the hub, and you might’ve put them back wrong? If not and they were actually in the hub like that, that would absolutely be the cause