Here it comes again...

Back from Kielder 100. Mixed bag. Reportage will be on VC moulin. Will put a linky up when i've thought about it all.

Using the recovery (read: lazy) few days left before going back to work to build some furniture, do some clearing out and attend to the DT hub i've been trying to service.



The problem is that the aluminium spacer that stops the 2 cartridge bearings in the freehub 'rotor' body getting side loaded died when i punched the bearings out. I have a newer DT singlespeed hub and basically the spacer washer *should* be able to be moved around (when the hub isnt being compressed in the drop outs) to allow access to punch the beairngs out. But it didnt want to move when i tried. It had become slightly lipped, due to pressure from the rws rear thru axle i suspect and it was sort of fixed in position relative to the bearings. So: what to do? DT dont make it easy to service the rotor itself. The rest of the hub is REALLY easy to service, but the rotor is a send back or replace item. Hmmm!...

The parts box showed up nothing of great use. Some washers, but either too thick or too thin. Hope hubs use a similar system, but not similar enough. Their spacer is 2mm thick or 14 or 16mm thick although it has the same inside diameter. Also the 2mm one is steel so less easy to work with.

My options here are to:
a) cut down then hand file the 14mm thick spacer you can see in the pic.
b) find a local machining firm that will do this for me.
c) try contacting DT swiss again.
d) try and get a whole new rotor body.

None of these really seem that ideal...for various reasons. Filing is unlikely to get accurate enough parallel surfaces for bearing longevity. A local machine shop that will do maybe four or five (for future use) 15mm i.d. 1.7mm thick aluminium spacers? seems unlikely. DT havent proven easy to contact on this matter and new rotor bodies are expensive and it would be pretty wasteful.

So. Here it comes again. I need access to good metal working tools and the skills to use them.

Well, i suppose it *is* winter soon - plenty of long evenings....