Tighting rear wheel / axle

[scrandall]

I have a new GIANT OCR 3. I had a squeak which originally I thought was the rear brake, but turned out it was the black rubber piece around the axle and it was rubbing funny when the wheel turned. So, I took the rear wheel off, loosened the nuts on the axle just enough so that I could place a bit of bearing grease between the rubber piece and axle. But, when I tightened everything back up and put the wheel back on I was surprised that the wheel barely even turned! Anyway, the bike shop fixed this for me no charge and said it was just a little tight.

My question (which I should've asked him I guess) is, is there a trick to keeping the axle nuts just a little loose or something? Seems like you sould tighten them up, but guess as long as you keep the quick release hubs tight, the wheel isn't going anywhere.

Thanks

 

[boudreaux]

I have a new GIANT OCR 3. I had a squeak which originally I thought was the rear brake, but turned out it was the black rubber piece around the axle and it was rubbing funny when the wheel turned. So, I took the rear wheel off, loosened the nuts on the axle just enough so that I could place a bit of bearing grease between the rubber piece and axle. But, when I tightened everything back up and put the wheel back on I was surprised that the wheel barely even turned! Anyway, the bike shop fixed this for me no charge and said it was just a little tight.

My question (which I should've asked him I guess) is, is there a trick to keeping the axle nuts just a little loose or something? Seems like you sould tighten them up, but guess as long as you keep the quick release hubs tight, the wheel isn't going anywhere.

Thanks

You can't 'keep the axel nuts loose' .The cones have to be properly adjusted and then the locknut tightened to hold the adjustment. Just tightening the nut without using a cone wrench to hold the adjustment cone likely caused it to move and made the bearing adjustment too tight. You are lucky you did not bugger something.Repair section at ww.parktool.com has the drill on axel and bearing adjustment.

 

[scrandall]

You can't 'keep the axel nuts loose' .The cones have to be properly adjusted and then the locknut tightened to hold the adjustment. Just tightening the nut without using a cone wrench to hold the adjustment cone likely caused it to move and made the bearing adjustment too tight. You are lucky you did not bugger something.Repair section at ww.parktool.com has the drill on axel and bearing adjustment.

Thanks a lot for the tip. I learned a lesson not to go tinkering with stuff like that if I don't know what I'm doing. Glad I took it in and let the pros fix it before I did "bugger" something. I'll check out that website too. Thanks