Thorn Cycles Forum
Community => Rohloff Internal Hub Gears => Topic started by: Matt2matt2002 on March 19, 2025, 02:36:16 PM
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If it ain't broke should I fix it?
My Rohloff hub runs fine and my stats show 44,000 miles covered by myself. Probably less than 1,000 miles by previous owners.
Regular oil changes.
Hub probably 12 years old.
SJS can arrange a reconditioning/ revision with Rohloff for around £275.00.
Opinions please. Should I await issues or go for the refurb now?
Best
Matt
No major or minor leaks.
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I've never heard of a hub being reconditioned, is this something SJS have recommended? I can't think what that would involve? New seals and maybe the plastic coupling pins replaced, what else?
My hub that came on a Raven Tour is now 22 years old, at least 110,000 miles and other than leaking a bit more oil than it used to, if running perfect. In that time it has had a new shell due to a broken flange and it's been converted to disc brake so the hub cap has also been replaced, but the internals are original. I think your's is nicely run in. Unless there's some advantage I haven't come across, I wouldn't be spending any money on it, I wouldn't be doing anything as a preventative measure unless I understood what it was I was hoping to prevent.
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If it is not giving you any reason to suspect a problem, I would not ask for it.
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If it ain't broke should I fix it?
I would reckon that if the hub works correctly, leave it be.
Concerning 7 to 14 speed hub gears, apart from making sure that the bearings and internals are properly lubricated, I reckon they don't really need a complete overhaul unless there is a problem.
On a Rohloff, the annual oil change should be sufficient to ensure lubrication, with perhaps some additional maintenance if using the Ex box. Otherwise, cable and housing replacements when necessary, maybe a shifter if this seems worn.
With the Shimano 7 and 8 speed hub gears I look after, the only maintenance to the hubs themselves has been for lubrication. This means taking the internal out, regreasing the two accessible bearings and oiling the internal. I added a lubrication hole to the 8 speeds to allow oil injection and prolong the interval between taking the internal out and regreasing the bearings.
I treat my Sturmey-Archer 5 speed hubs a bit differently. I wouldn't pay someone to do it, but these hubs are simple enough for me to take everything apart myself, so I generally do a complete overhaul when I take the internal out to regrease the bearings. As they also pick up a bit more dirt than the 7 and more speed hubs I have used, it seems reasonable to dismantle completely, clean the parts, reassemble the internal, then oil the internal and grease the 3 accessible bearings before putting the internal back into the hub shell. But it doesn't need doing very often. In between overhauls I add small amounts of oil though the oiler on the hub shell.
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Can you ask what is done for that £275 charge?
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After 44,000 miles, it probably wouldn't hurt to have the paper gaskets on the shifting mech inspected and replaced if need be, and have the shifting mech itself examined. However, you can get this done for a lot cheaper at e.g. the Rohloff authorized service points in Poland or Hungary, should your travels ever take you that way.
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Many thanks folks.
In answer to what you get, this is the reply from SJS:
Rohloff offer what is described as a 'revision'. This entails fitment (on an exchange basis) of factory reconditioned internals, new bearings, seals, gaskets and bolts plus fresh oil of course. This is guaranteed for a period of 2 years.
After reading the above views I've taken on board the, why fix it if it ain't broken comments.
I think I was tempted by my belt and braces mentality.
Cheers folks.
Matt
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Most if not all mechanical devices benefit from frequent lubrication…..maybe additional oil changes would benefit the gearbox and put your mind at rest?
Slightly relevant….I recently found metal swarf in the gearbox oil of my BMW R100R Airhead. It was working fine but gearboxes built 1982 - 1994 have a known problem as BMW deleted the circlip that stopped gear 5 moving along the output shaft into the end bearing. Luckily I caught it in time and it did not self destruct although new bearings and the 5th gear cog have been required.
Are there any checks that can be done on Rohloff gearbox to check if wear /damage is occurring?
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In answer to what you get, this is the reply from SJS:
Rohloff offer what is described as a 'revision'. This entails fitment (on an exchange basis) of factory reconditioned internals, new bearings, seals, gaskets and bolts plus fresh oil of course. This is guaranteed for a period of 2 years.
That looks a fairly thorough service for the money, it wouldn't sway me in your position, but if I ever get round to having my oil leak fixed I'd be tempted to go the whole hog and have that done.
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...this is the reply from SJS:
["]Rohloff offer what is described as a 'revision'. This entails fitment (on an exchange basis) of factory reconditioned internals, new bearings, seals, gaskets and bolts plus fresh oil of course. This is guaranteed for a period of 2 years.["]
I don't like that free-floating parenthetical "on an exchange basis". Does it mean that Rohloff will (A) exchange some worn components inside your own gearbox for new, or (B) simply take another rebuilt set of internals off the shelf and put them in your shell (which at least preserves the continuity of the serial number) so that what you get back is perhaps someone else's preloved components, with an equal risk of getting some nevermind's pretrashed components or even simply more worn than your own components but not to the extent of replacement? I wouldn't fancy B at all; too uncertain.
Another question which needs answering is whether any of the moving, mating parts, like the gears, are being replaced, and consequently the unlucky owner will have to go through the running-in process of the Rohloff again, which in such a long-lived mechanism is northwards of 5000m/8000km, depending on how refined you want your Rohloff to be.
On the whole, I think your decision, Matt, not to mess with what ain't broken, is the right one.
A couple of years before 2010 the subject of the longevity of a Rohloff hub gearbox arose when the the first few permanent bicycle tourers reached 200,000km, and not too long afterwards the quarter-million. Herr Rohloff himself, at a summer meeting of Utopia owners, said that he wasn't making any forecasts of what his gearbox's service life would be. A toolmaker at Boeing told me that I needn't fear buying a Rohloff because it's a German engineering masterpiece which starts being run in when a Shimano Nexus lies itself down to die.* Seems to me that your Rohloff box is hardly run in.
*The mean time before failure of the Shimano box is said to be 50,000km, though Nexus boxes soldiering on to well over 100k are not uncommon in The Netherlands where they are the prime commuter boxes. But a quarter-million klicks, with a definitive end not in sight, puts a Rohloff box in a different class altogether.
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*The mean time before failure of the Shimano box is said to be 50,000km, though Nexus boxes soldiering on to well over 100k are not uncommon in The Netherlands where they are the prime commuter boxes. But a quarter-million klicks, with a definitive end not in sight, puts a Rohloff box in a different class altogether.
Even the much simpler 3 and 5 speed Sturmey-Archer gears last for a very long time if lubricated regularly, at least in the older oil lubricated versions.
The S5/2 on my old utility bike is currently at over 55,000 kms.
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For service work like this can the whole wheel be returned and left intact or does the hub need to be removed from the wheel, meaning a wheel rebuild?
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For service work like this can the whole wheel be returned and left intact or does the hub need to be removed from the wheel, meaning a wheel rebuild?
The gear unit is removable from the shell with the wheel built, you can see the process here:
https://www.rohloff.de/en/service/handbook/speedhub/workshop/gear-unit-replacement
I pulled mine out once, I thought it might be worth letting it drain and wiping any residual oil from the shell. I did the flush part of an oil change first, and was surprised how clean the innards were.
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Thanks Paul, very clear in that link.
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I pulled mine out once, I thought it might be worth letting it drain and wiping any residual oil from the shell. I did the flush part of an oil change first, and was surprised how clean the innards were.
Did you replace or reuse the plastic pins? Did the pins show wear?
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I pulled mine out once, I thought it might be worth letting it drain and wiping any residual oil from the shell. I did the flush part of an oil change first, and was surprised how clean the innards were.
Did you replace or reuse the plastic pins? Did the pins show wear?
Wear on the pins was one of the things I was told to look out for, they were perfectly round so I saw no need to change them, the only parts replaced were the gaskets. The hub was ten years old at this point, less than half it's current age, though it had done about 70% of it's mileage. The gear unit had already been out once to have the shell replaced, four years previously, I don't know if SJS replaced the pins then.
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If it ain't broke should I fix it?
My Rohloff hub runs fine and my stats show 44,000 miles covered by myself. Probably less than 1,000 miles by previous owners.
Regular oil changes.
Hub probably 12 years old.
SJS can arrange a reconditioning/ revision with Rohloff for around £275.00.
Opinions please. Should I await issues or go for the refurb now?
Best
Matt
No major or minor leaks.
Mine was leaking badly and seemed to need some seals replaced so I had it refurbed as above, new rim, reinforced rings etc. all good and great service as usual. I wouldn’t do it if there is nothing obviously wrong with the hub.
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The S5/2 on my old utility bike is currently at over 55,000 kms.
Though I've never had a Sturmey-Archer HGB, I'm not surprised to hear that, Martin. You don't need to be on the better cycling netsites long to discover that many serious cyclists still have SA hubs in service.
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At roughly 88,000 miles, my Rohloff started leaking a significant amount of oil from both the drive and ex-box sides. The hub was running just fine, but it seemed pretty clear that it was time for new seals at least. Peter White Cycles (where I purchased the bike new) told me that "Rohloff guidance" for a hub with that mileage was to pull the entire core and replace it with a factory refurbished core for $350. Since there was no way that I could see to get replacement parts I (begrudgingly) had the replacement done. 3,000 miles later, the rebuilt hub seems to be doing just fine, thank you. On the plus side, no leakage at all which is better than the old hub even when it was brand new.
Bottom line, I paid a couple hundred bucks more than I should have needed to for new seals. But if I can get another 80,000 miles, I'm not going to complain too loudly. The cost per mile, even including the cost of new innards is still about half of what my various derailleur bikes cost. I'll pile on here and say if it ain't broke don't fix it.
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The gear unit is removable from the shell with the wheel built, you can see the process here:
https://www.rohloff.de/en/service/handbook/speedhub/workshop/gear-unit-replacement
That looks quite straightforward.
I'll certainly try doing it myself if I ever get significant oil leaks on one of my Rohloffs.
And if something does go wrong inside the hub it will be much easier to send just the internal rather than the complete wheel.