Quieting a rear hub/messing with the rear pawls test

Let me first state that I am not a bicycle mechanic and was inspired to do this based on a Felix wong's article about quieting a loud freehub. He posted his before and after results on youtube and the results were quite dramatic. Link to the article below.

Why I wanted to do this modification was simply because I noticed that the rear wheel hub seemed to not spin as freely as my previous shimano ultegra 6500 hub which is incredibly quiet in use.

[jpdk]

If your pawls are disengaged and making lots of noise you need to start pedaling again! After all there is no pawl resistance when you a pedalling. The only time this would be a benefit is when you are coasting downhill, but downhill speed is limited by wind resistance: the pawl resistance is completely negligible in comparison. Also your hub will probably fail much sooner, and then you won't be going very fast at all! ;)

[MrEric]

The louder the better, I no need to ring my bell.

[jsmithepa]

First off, not all hubs is as easy to remove as shown in this video, but I do have a noisy Reynolds hub, and upon disassembly I noted my spring tension is already fairly weak so I can't see how a different spring would help, so I just removed 1 paw out or 3, clean out the old grease, which seems kinda thin to me and applied liberal helping of auto brake lithium grease, which is thicker than the stock's. Immediately the noise is down. Lets see if it holds up over time. Thought I wouldn't mind the noise but I do. Hate noise.

[williammarcum]

Those pawls are pretty universal, looks like you have space for 3 more pawls, I would add more pawls and a good coating of ceramic grease on the internals and that would turn that hub into a beast!! the grease would quiet it significantly and you would have a 6 pawl hub with 48 points of engagement at least..don't remove pawls add more!!

[stoneheartjp]

Its really just fine removing 1 of those 3 teeths as long as you put the remaining two at the same distance from each other. There are six slots meaning you just remove one teeth and adjust one of them to be level. I disassembled my old shimano hub and it only has two of those. I dint know there where hubs that has 3. Now that explains why som bikes have really loud freewheel sounds.

[BikeGuyFPV]

Hmm, looks like a expensive way to break and ruin a hub.  There is a reason why there are three pawls.  Or move the second pawl so it's adjacent from the other one at 3 and 9 o'clock positions.  Honestly for how I ride I would add the other three pawls to have six for better power transfer.  

[nottingham]

have you thought of moving the two remaining pawls directly across from each other instead of leaving 1/3 of the hub all pawlless. It might alleviate your uneven distribution of power concerns

[ThatMontmorency]

Er... The purpose of that ring is to keep the pawls sticking _out_ under some specific amount of tension, not to keep them tucked in. Yes, the spring also doubles as a retainer that prevents the pawls from falling out, but this is its secondary purpose. The primary purpose of the ring, again, is to force the pawl ends _out_. Meanwhile, the author of the video uses a toothpick to illustrate the opposite effect of the ring. This is misleading to an unprepared watcher.

[Bandilerosoundboy]

I have the same issue with my new Vision trimax 30. When I am going downhill and let it freewheel You actually feel the bike slow down. I don't have this problem with my Duraace C50's nor my Marchiso Zefiro. And I actually prefer softer freewheel clicking anyhow. I want to make a note that the Vision Trimax is a brand new wheel as opposed to the
others. So I assume it will quiet down and decrease it's drag after a few thousand kilometers. I really wish there was an immediate fix for it. I appreciate you bringing this issue to the table because the efficiency of the bike is jeopardized to noticeable extents from springs that are too stiff.

[NUMWD]

The pawls are the important things for transfer force from hub to rotate the wheel .
If you always ride down the hill by free your legs, this concepts is OK.
But nobody always rides by free legs all time, so this is misconcept.
When you're pedalling  , rolling resistance is not affected by removing a pawl but stability of hub mechanism is affected .

Conclusion, you don't really understand hub mechanism.

[cthew]

yeah, i made another video about that as I thought that moving the two pawls directly opposite would be better, but it doesn't work. Running on 2 pawls so far has been fine and i'm comfortable with the pawl engagement.

[cthew]

awesome thanks for posting your findings. I did the same thing and have found the noise to be much quieter as a result.

[cadogans]

I tried going to 2x pawls - not much better noise wise. So I decided to remove the c clip spring which was very easy. I observed the gap in the c clip to be about 1.25mm plus or minus .25mm. I sat very patiently for 5 minutes to frequent myself with the spring like properties of the c clip. Once I was comfortable with this I opened the c clip very gently - applied several iteration of this until I reach a gap of about 3.5-4mm - refitted the clip with only two pawls and the noise 80% better :)

[almonpoole]

That was Tyler Hamilton who you were describing who had the bad Giro crash. I'm a very fast and aggressive rider and could not see doing this but to each his or her own.

[popoybakal]

I think it wouldn't be fair if you compare a road bike hub to a mountain bike rear hub. Primarily the loud noise is due to the reason why it is suggested to be placed on a mountain bike, since you pedal more on it than on a road bike. (uphill = lower gear = more cadence vs Flat = more on higher gear = less cadence). The pawls and their springs are mainly made to withstand high powered pedaling compared to the way the RB hubs are made. just my 2 cents.

As of the time of your video, It may have the same resistance but still we cant be too sure how it will play inthe long run. IMO

I maybe wrong but that is how I see what the MTB pawls are made for

[mikeymcdoogle]

would be nice if someone would just invent a freewheel hub that you can fully disengage the pawls manually like a cruise control and have it automatically re engage when you pedal forward

[cthew]

i don't know but you are welcome to try.

[Nootaxx]

I personally enjoy the sound no matter how much friction is caused by the spring or pawls.

[IanPitts]

I recently trashed a hub inside of 2 months because I'm 230lbs and put a ton of torque through my drivetrain. Removing one of the 3 pawls would have made it die even faster. I'm using DT Swiss hubs on my new wheelset which should be multiple orders of magnitude stronger.

[asicsrunner]

Btw, the higher viscosity the grease, the better since the friction from spinning will melt the grease. Tri-flow will likely run and might leak out of the hub.