[Closed] So how have I done that? Freehub comes away with cassette

Likely the seal for the freehub wasn't seated properly on the hub. That and the end caps are the only thing usually holding it on.

Highly likely nothing to worry about at all.

Most folk will have done this before.

What brand/model hub mate?

Good old self disassembling Hopes?

Superstar electro hubs do that. It a real pita as all the pawls can also fall out

They are a superstar purchase; Fuel perhaps? 26’ers I got a while back but never got around to putting on.

DT swiss do this, its great for quick lube of star ratchet

This happened to me this morning on my Hope hubs whilst taking them apart to sell them, what do I need to do to fix them?

Hope have great vids for their hubs mate. I can't recall the exact method but their service vid will show it all in detail. I do remember it being very simple.👍

Watched the Hope vid. Not what I needed exactly but if you’ve got a Hope hub, it’ll be ace.

What would I need to be mindful of to stop this happening again - can’t afford to take it to LBS every time.

Sorry op, was answering will.

What sort of hub is it OP
#As above some hubs are designed to be able to be dissasembled without tools. Just learn how to put it back together. Hope ones take two minutes to do.

Haha, any other manufacturer and this would probably be considered a design flaw but because it's Hope it's all fine and dandy to have your freehub pawls and springs falling out every time you take your cassette off 😉

Haha, any other manufacturer and this would probably be considered a design flaw but because it’s Hope it’s all fine and dandy to have your freehub pawls and springs falling out every time you take your cassette off 😉

The OP has a Superstar hub

Aye, but everyone opened it expecting another example of hopes finest...

Yeah, I was just laughing because everyone was leaping to Hope's defence despite OP not even owning a Hope hub.

I opened the thread expecting it to be a Hope hub also, I managed to pull cassette and freehub off in a car park somewhere just trying to refit the wheel a little hastily, once bitten twice shy!

I have watched the video and he uses a tool to push the freehub back in, do I need this or I can I bodge/make do with something else?

You don't need the tool,you just need something cylindrical that matches the seal size .
I use/kept an old roll on deodorant tube to do it.

OP - we have superstar hubs (Tesla I think).
Make sure all the springs and pawls are in and facing same way.
Then, pop freehub back on by twisting anticlockwise a fair bit as well as pushing on. This 'folds' the pawls back in as if you were back pedalling. It will pop back on.
Do check the end cap is lined up, as this can prevent it really bottoming down. This is the one held captive by the casette lock ring.

I use a loop of very thin electrical cable, extracted from an old scart lead, although any cable for small electronics will do! Twist it together to tighten the loop and close the pawls down. Once the pawls are engaged in the hub, untwist the cable, then pull on one strand and out it comes 😉

Thanks Matt_outandabout - it's with the LBS now so I'm hoping they aren't going to knacker it further. What you recommend makes sense to me but are you detaching the wedged cassette before reengaging the freehub?

Yeah, fuel hubs do that. Reassemble as matt_oab says. Leave the cassette on - no need to remove it. In future with this hub, have a bungy or bit of string to restrain it if you need it off the bike for any reason. Saves the pain of looking for springs and pawls on the ground.

So it doesnt matter (long term) that the cassette is wedged on it?

If you've not taken the lock ring off this is exactly what you'd want* to happen if you pulled the cassette.

If the locking is off the "wedged" is usually just the cassette having bitten into the freehub, bit of a pain for the purposes of removal/replacement but far from unusual or actually problematic in most cases.

Don't worry about it, as above unless you've lost the pawls or the springs no harm done, it's just a (slightly annoying at times) design feature**.

*more so than the cassette coming off and stripping locking threads any how.

**or flaw depending how often and when it's happened to you.

It is very difficult to properly locate the freehub seal into the hub body correctly with the cassette on (on Hope, I'm making an assumption that Superstar are similar). I tend to remove the cassette when this happens to push the seal back in properly, otherwise it will all rust up very quickly in there.

No I don't take cassette off to reinstall. Just put it all back together (usually we have a pawl move or fall off), then hold cassette to twist and push on.

As I said, only thing to check is the end cap has actually gone on fully or you end up with it not 'going on', but not through the pawls catching but through top cap catching.

Excellent, thanks. I'll let the LBS know as they are saying this is could be an hours work which makes me think they might benefit from the knowledge above.

Sounds like something I should've waited and done myself 🙁

Have we established yet that the rear axle isn't snapped? I did three on a Superstar rear hub before upgrading to the steel axle that you can get from another brand that I cannot recall (Superstar hubs are not a unique design).

Excellent, thanks. I’ll let the LBS know as they are saying this is could be an hours work which makes me think they might benefit from the knowledge above.

I wouldn’t bother unless you want an argument...

The stuff above really isn’t particularly specialist knowledge, just experience. You just discovered your LBS’s workshop policy. Not a huge dealbreaker if they’re doing a nice job cleaning up and possibly tweaking gears but file it for future that a job most would do over a cup of tea ‘might be an hour’. It’s a potentially messy job depending how long the seal has been open and after all you didn’t want to DIY.

On the subject of tools to refit the seal, while the proper tool is undoubtedly quick, I manage fine with a blue plastic tyre lever and a couple of minutes working around the seal while holding the body down.

manage fine with a blue plastic tyre lever and a couple of minutes working around the seal while holding the body down.

I use a red one 🙂

I've actually found my starnut fitting tool is the perfect size for Hope Pro4 seals.

Ok so that shop took it off and put it all back together, lovely buzzy engagement, spot on. Or so I thought. Mine is the old QR drop outs, if that makes a difference to your reply’s, but when I put it back into the rear dropouts again it disengaged. Using the advice above I managed to reengage it, however the end cap was really loose so I did them up as finger tight as poss, and now it’s fubar. I can spin the pedals but when I freewheel I guess the freehub stops and then the rear derailleur is pulled up by the chain which is sucked up by the cassette - help, my head is done in and I need a home fix.
Thanks.

Do it doesn’t freewheel then?

Obviously when you freewheel (stop pedalling) nothing should move apart from the back wheel spinning freely.

Are your rear mech jockey wheels moving freely and is your BB moving freely?

I had a problem a few weeks ago where my cranks were turning when I stopped pedalling. It was a seized jockey wheel causing it.

Have you checked the axle in the hub isn’t broken?

If you take the wheel off the bike, don’t turn it cassette side down and the freehub won’t come off.

Nothing wrong with the jockey wheels. It does a revolution at best and then it pulls derailleur up so not really freewheeling at all. The axle is an old XT qr and looks fine to me. It feels like I’ve done something up too tight when I spin the cassette - perhaps I’ve over tightened the end cap, but I only did that with my fingers, so that seems odd. Stumped.

I mean the actual hub axle, not the QR skewer.

Are all the hub bearings ok? Spinning freely and not collapsed?

Hard to diagnose without seeing it. Do you have a spare wheel / could you borrow a wheel to try in the bike?

That would help rule out drivetrain issue and confirm it is definitely the wheel.

There are quite a few moving parts and as I mentioned above it was my jockey wheel causing the issue, it wasn’t until I took everything apart bit by bit and felt it by hand I found the problem. Everything felt fine when I turned the cranks.

The hub and wheel are brand new.

Picked it up from the LBS and it span fine, nice engagement
Took it home, span fine, nice engagement - but I could pull cassette and freehub off
Used the trick above to get it engaged again, span fine, nice engagement
The end cap (so the one on the cassette side) could be pulled-off, which I thought was a bad thing, so I did it up as finger tight as poss (I had an old tesla hub which used to tighten using a hex key either side but didnt do this)
Got it back in the frame and the problem starts so took it out
Notice that the cassette doesnt spin well but have engagement.
So what have i done? Nipped the end cap too tight? If the axel is fubar then why would it work out of the frame?

If it worked fine till you tightened the cap then loosen it off a bit till it spins freely?

Well thats the plan when I get a bit of time again. Should that end cap just push on, should it be tightened a bit. I've tightened it to the point I couldnt get the cassette off.

The end cap only needs to be tight enough to hold the hub together. It sounds like by overtightening it you are compressing the bearings, causing the binding. Tight enough to be snug/loose enough to spin

Well I think I’m taking I’m conceding and taking it back the LBS. I’ve tried to slacken off the end cap but I can’t get it to the point where it would just pull off again and then being able to remove the freehub with the cassette. Christ knows how I’ve done this but the cassette won’t spin more than once on the freehub.

Any ideas before I drop it in?

Bump for the daytime crew.

I don't know this hub but most are similar .It sounds like you've done the same thing again that caused original problem-which is pulling the cassette off as you went to install it which would of unseated the freehub seal behind the cassette which you could now be trapping/binding when you tighten axle caps as it is not in correct position.
So remove cassette,check seal is popped into it's groove,and freehub is spinning nicely could be worth now tensioning end caps to see if all is well without cassette in place and there isn't another problem whilst you can see whats going on then re install cassette.
Could be that someone has left out the bearing spacer washer that a lot of hubs have in them-that would cause binding also.

Standard issue with Hope freehubs not freehubbing is indeed a washer behind the freehub which always gets lost/forgotten. It’s plain steel and about 1.5-2mm thick from memory. Assuming the pawls and springs are correctly seated and the washer is there and you aren’t using non-XD endcaps with an XD cassette (too long, causing binding through squash when fitted to bike but fine until fitted) there’s really not much is going to stop a freehub working if the bearings were fine when you started.

Little bit lost on this thread, but in general once you’re beyond an average 10sp cassette there is plenty weight to pull a Hope freehub off the hub if tilted inappropriately while not in the backend of the bike. It was plenty possible with all cassettes tbh but 11sp+ seems to be making it happen more often. The seal needs seating to ensure long bearing life and you’ll need to take the cassette off to do that. If you don’t want to take the cassette off, just offer the assembly up, turn it backward and it should drop in. Give it a good shove and pop the endcap on. You’ll need to look at the bearings sooner but I reckon at least half the Hope hubs in existence run this way.

There is nothing that locks the freehub on to a Hope hub beyond friction fit of the seal and the end cap. It’s meant to pop apart with a good tug. The idea is that simple stack of metal holds it all together and located while it’s in the bike.

Thanks to @rickon for this though!

I’ve actually found my starnut fitting tool is the perfect size for Hope Pro4 seals.

OK, perhaps taking the cassette off and having another go from scratch might be worth it before taking it into LBS, that being said, this is a Superstar FUEL hub and not HOPE. Fairly sure I've not lost anything and it was spinning fine when I got it back from LBS, this purely moronic me trying to keep the cassette on the freehub by tightening the end cap.

Frustrating

Aha. Ok, so just taken a google around.

Seems the freehub on the Fuel needing to be in the bike to stay attached to the hub is fairly normal, other STW threads about it.

Superstar do still have loads of stock of replacement parts but no online manuals.

Apparently the hub is a rebrand of a French hub by a company called Aivee and model MT2 - but it seems discontinued and there’s a page not found. Depending how good your French is, might be worth digging around the Aivee dire or talking to them?

Nothing but food and drink French so perhaps concede and head back to LBS