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This is a bit of a long shot but fingers crossed.
I've just inherited a cnoc 14 from my brother in law and decided to give it a thorough servicing. The wheels were barely spinning so I disassembled the hubs and wasn't surprised to see the bearings looking rather sorry. However, once everything was clean, relubed, and reassembled it was almost as good new... except for the fact that once I tightened the axle, the pressure was far too great on the bearings and the bearings hardly turned. If I loosen it off to hand tight then the wheel spins fantastically but even a modest amount of pressure causes them to spin much too slowly.
I contacted islabikes and they said there are 18 ball bearings per wheel (3/16th on the front and 1/4 on the rear). However, my cnoc 14 has 20 ball bearings on the front wheel (loose balls) and 14 on the back (7 on each side and in a race). Islabike have said that is incorrect but that doesn't make sense as the bike was bought new from them!
So, does anyone know how to properly tighten these wheels so that they don't crush the bearings and spin freely. For a 3 year old who's getting into riding I want as little friction as possible! 🙂
Thanks!
When putting in new loose balls Stop when you could fit one more ball in the hub. You don’t need to fill it right up.
Bind the cone and locking nut on one side of the hub up nice and tight to each other.
Then adjust the preload on the other used. Mostly when the wheels out of the bike leave a little play in the axle as this will disappear once wheels in the frame. You will need cone spanners
That’s it, just tighten the cone slightly loose.
Try it with the correct number of balls and see if the cone can tighten onto the balls.
Hub assembly on my recent few islabikes has been poor.
Also just bought a used 16 and they are way too tight and I am sure then have never been roughed.
Thanks. This is exactly what I did but I think I can probably leave it even looser. I'll also try removing a single ball on the front to see if it helps.
Thanks for the responses.
Hugely disappointing service from Islabike. They are adamant the bearings in the wheels are incorrect yet the bearings have never been changed since the bike was bought from them! They're refusing to rectify the issue so I'll just replace the bearings myself and never buy an islabike again.
Thanks for the help here. I'm not expecting dt240s level of performance but I'm sure I can get then to spin a lot more freely. The link which mentions the sensitivity of 1/10th of a turn was helpful.