Replace a rear hub cup?

[One-eyed Sailor]

I am almost done with a clean 86 Sierra (black chrome, why I bought it) but the drive side cup on the R hub is trashed. At this point I've purchased 3 different used hubs, none of which has been a good replacement. This is a pretty hub and I'm trying to stay as original as I can with this one.

Then, just today a Rat Bro asked about replacing the cup and I..... what??? That's possible??
Apparently it is...

Last $20 I'm spending on this bike.

Anyone else done this? Not sure how to pull the old one without making a mess.
There is a tube of steel between the two cups so it seems tough to get a puller or anything else on it.

Thanks, Jim

 

[rickpaulos]

It's been my experience that the Japanese and Chinese hub bearing cups are not as hard as the French. They do wear out or get damaged. That JoyTech hub is a close copy of the French Normandy hub. The main diff is the shape of the holes in the flanges. The Schwinn Approved French hubs are another option. There are Schwinn Approved Asian hubs too. I've rarely ever seen a worn out Normany cup. By 1984 Schwinn had shut down the Chicago factory and many of the bikes were outsourced from Taiwan or China so those would have all Asian parts.

Replacing the bearing cups. I normally don't do that. Easier to replace the hub from the crates of hubs or mountains of wheels at the local coop. There are "Blind pullers" for extracting bearings that are only accessible from the one side. Some bicycle hubs have zero lip or space to insert the pullers. When you install new cups, they need to pressed in exactly flat or the bearings will bind up.

There are some hubs with the steel tube that is flared out on both ends to help hold the cups in place. Usually you only see the tubes in all steel hubs, mostly low end ,just above the junk hubs with no support for the pressed steel cups.

I had a customer way back that removed the cups, machined the opening to take cartridge sealed bearings. Now you can get cartridge bearings in nearly every size possible. Trying to run a cartridge bearing on a threaded axle isn't going to be stable. Expect a lot of wobble at the rim. Most sealed cartridge bearing hub axles have just enough threading at the ends for a lock nut.




this is from a Japanese Schwinn Approved hub. Someone put in 1 too many balls and rode it. No center tube so it might have been possible to pull the cup. I replaced the entire hub.



Cup worn out and breaking apart. Asian hub.

 

[Starnger]

Done that several times, no problem at all. Just make sure your new cup exactly matches the old one. Apart from the fact there are few standards that differ a 0,2mm sometimes there are also flanged and flangeless cups. But if you measure precisely there shouldn't be a problem doing that. If you don't mind some machining, chances are you can even convert it to sealed bearings. Sealed bearings are usually slightly bigger OD then the cups, but if you go one step down and make an adapter it can be done