Slippage on gear 8 and a dull clicking sound

[Reuel]

Last November I bought a new Rohloff hub from www.cambriabike.com and I've been having some issues with it. It is a quick release version with the torque arm. I do all my mechanical work including wheel building and the hub is fitted to a Surly Cross Check frame. Pics: http://picasaweb.google.com/reueladhikari/Rohloff?feat=directlink

At first I installed the hub without the chain tensioner and I would get occasional slips on gear 9 while climbing and starting from a stopped position in that gear. Thinking this would be a chain tension issue I've installed the tensioner as can be seen on the pics. With the tensioner on I still get skips & slips on gears 8 (once or twice a day) & 9 (less often). I have checked the tightness of the Pitlock skewer which doesn't appear to be overly tight. I have also checked the tightness of the axle plate torx screws which don't appear too tight either.

The second issue I have is a dull click once every wheel rotation coming from the hub. This sound comes & goes and only happens when I'm on the bike pedaling or coasting. This sound does not happen while walking the bike or spinning the unloaded wheel. I've checked the tire & the presta valve and the sound doesn't appear to come from those areas.

The third issue is that on hot days (35 C etc) a drop or two of oil would ooze out via the right dropout and derailer hanger. This might be coming out through the hollow QR axle.

Thanks in advance for any solutions/tips to solve the above!

-Reuel

[stutho]

Hi Reuel,

Welcome to the list.

Slippage - Well done for checking the tensions, Two more things to check:  check that you are not running the shifter cables too tight and are both the paw springs (located under the gear ring) in place?  How much slippage is occurring, is the hub engaging after 1/4 of a crank or not at all?  Also is it only happing once after a gear change some time after a gear change or many times while in the same gear? 

From what you have typed so far I think that you may be one of the unlucky 1% that requires there hub to be re shimmed.  This is a known issue to Rohloff.  Hubs that have this fault normally show it from new.  It would be best to contact Rohloff directly if you think that this is the fault.

Dull click - Are you sure that this is from the hub and not the rim - MAVIC rims in particular are well known for this. If it is from the hub then I would be very worried.

Oil   -  Sound fine the hub breaths into the hollow axle, this can push a drop or two of oil out now and again

Regards

Stutho

[Reuel]

Hi Stutho,

Thanks very much for the suggestions! I have slackened the tension on both shifter cables, and on my commute to work & back today I didn't notice any slipping/skipping at all!! It used to randomly slip in gear 8 about a quarter turn on climbs & accelerating from stops almost every day. I'll have to carefully observe this change for the better the next few days and report back!

You might be right on the money on the clicking sound too as the hub is laced to a Mavic A719 rim. It could be the spoke eyelets that are creaking. The reason I suspected the hub is that I used the same rim with a Shimano hub for a couple of months before undoing that wheel and building up with the Rohloff, and back then I didn't notice this sound.

The oil oozing out on hot days sounds like a natural thing with the hub from what you say.

Thanks again for the tips!

-Reuel

[Reuel]

It appears that the gear slipping problem has worsened. Introducing a lot of cable slack - say about 4mm play on the twist shifter does bring down the number of slips. However today even with that amount of slack a lot of slips happened in gear 9 – both just after shifting and after staying in that gear for a while. The freewheel springs are in place so no problems there. I suppose it is now time to convert the bike back to derailers and contact Rohloff here in Australia. I sure do hope Rohloff finds a way to test the hubs in factory before shipping!

[stutho]

Reuel,

In sounds more and more to me like you are going to have to sent the Hub back to Rohloff for a re Shim... however before you do one thing to try is an oil change.  If you do decide to change the oil give the flush oil plenty of time to do it stuff - say a 5 mile ride. 

To be honest with you  I don't think doing an oil change this will help - but it wont hurt either, pulse when you talk to the Rohloff rep you will be in a smug position of having tried every thing already.

Sorry to here you are still having issues.   


StuTho



     

[Reuel]

Hello Stu,

Today I spoke with the Rohloff rep. She thinks there could a bit of something stuck in the innards that's causing all the misery. Her suggestion is to drain the old oil out and inject in exactly that amount of cleaning oil and ride like that for a 100km or so. I'll try that this weekend. However I have converted my primary & only bike back to a derailer setup and have ordered a new Surly frame which will be the experimental platform for the Rohloff.

-Reuel

[stutho]

Reuel,

That all sound reasonable - She is basically saying the same as me - try an oil change + an extended run in the flush oil.  Like I said before, I kind of doubt if this will work but you never know.

Let us know how you get on


StuTho 

[julk]

I had an early problem with my Rohloff with some gear slippage, but not as severe as Reuel describes.
I contacted SJS who recommended trying a couple of oil changes to give it a good flushing out.

This worked for me.

[Reuel]

Finally this morning I finished the build around the new frame. Pic:  http://picasaweb.google.com.au/reueladhikari/Rohloff#5311053246273797346

I drained out about 15ml of old oil and then added 15ml of cleaning oil. Shortly after I rode out there was a slip in gear 9 and then I rode around for 30km or so without further slips. However I didn't dare try any “out of saddle-stomp with all might” type of climb. I reused the drain plug with Loctite 243 (blue) as I couldn't  find Loctite 511 as prescribed in the manual. Next I'll inject in the 10ml of cleaning oil left in the bottle and have another ride tomorrow before the final oil change.

[Reuel]

Another update to my Rohloff saga:

The hub was still slipping after the oil change, so as much as I disliked the idea when Stu mentioned it, I now realize that I'm in the unlucky 1%. I was half expecting the slips to go away like julk posted above but nope. The Rohloff rep told me to send the wheel to them in Queensland and I happen to be in Melbourne.

Now is the time to find out that the road bike wheel is too big for most cardboard boxes close at hand. Anyway cut up two boxes and tape them together so the wheel fits! Next surprise today: my local post office doesn't accept odd size boxes, so hop on the train and go to the bigger post office in the next suburb and yes they take em big!

Sorry I'm feeling a little let down here... but lets not forget this is land down under!!

[julk]

Sorry to hear that your gear slippage problem is still there after oil changes.
Inconvenient to send it away, but I trust it will come back from Rohloff in perfect working order

[Reuel]

On Mar 31, Tue I got a call from a Rohloff mechanic. He said he rode my wheel for 20km and tried some hills too and didn’t experience any slips! Nevertheless he also said that upon instructions from Germany he has installed new internals. The wheel should be back next week.

[Reuel]

The wheel arrived yesterday. No slips on my commute today & it was a wet day too. I'll report back after a couple more weeks of riding.

[expr]

Good to see you have been sorted out, did they say they would come back with a more definate answer as to the cause of the issue. seems strange that the problems you were having were not with the gears that usually seem to suffer as mentioned by andy b. Was it the uk distributor that you spoke with or germany, I am aware that the uk ditributor has no one there that can pull the hub apart down to componenet level. I have spoken to them in the past and didn't get any benificial answers at all and was prompted to speak to germany. Where i received an answer allmost instantly regarding the sun gears.

[Reuel]

In the last two weeks of commuting, this hub with a new gearbox hasn't slipped once. I didn't get any explanations from Rohloff Australia about what might have been wrong with the original gearbox. So I suppose only in Germany do they re-shim hubs or disassemble the internals and out here they just do a swap.

Since this was my first experience with a hub gear system I didn't know what to expect. Otherwise I would've reported the fault to Rohloff earlier rather than riding with the occasional slips since Nov 08 and expecting the glitch to go away in the wear & tear process! Thanks to the forum members for enlightening me.