Squeaky coaster brake

shop deals on amazon
Bike Wall
Advertise with us
BOXKARS
Rat Rod Bikes Bicycle Forum

Help Support Rat Rod Bikes Bicycle Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
B

brentville

Joined
Aug 23, 2008
Messages
287
Reaction score
0
Location
St. Louis, MO
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
I should have left well enough alone....My Schwinn Hollywood with the Mark IV coaster brake worked ok but was a little light in grabbing so I filled the hub with some standard bike oil. Now it squeaks like crazy when braking. Otherwise it's a champ. Was this too light of an oil to use in the hub?

Tell me anything that will stop the squeaking short of rebuilding and lubing the hub please!
 
Why not open it? It's not like an antique watch in there. Oil just freed up a mess in there, and it's likely to spread. If it's a clutch brake, it does take light oil, but it also takes occasional cleaning. If, on the other hand,it's a 2-shoe/cookie type brake, oil can actually decrease brake effectiveness, although it's still better than bone dry. Bearings for both need light grease, as does the shoe type brake assembly. Once again, oil is better than dry. I do not know offhand which kind a Mark IV is, but if you can put the wheel on the bike, you can clean and lube your hub at home in 10-20 minutes.
 
Sounds like the brake shoes or hub has a glaze built up on it.

If you're able, take it apart, clean all the parts well and especially the inside of the hub shell and brake shoes. Use very fine steel wool to get the built up varnish like stuff off the shoes and hub. Be sure to clean it up well after using the steel wool, as it will leave tiny pieces of metal. Then grease the bearings and surfaces with bike lube and put it back together.

If you don't want to go through all that, a bike shop could rebuild it for you, might be pricey.
 
Additionally, if a clutch type(multiple disk) squeaks it can be cured by light sanding on a flat fine whetstone of the discs. If a 2-shoe type squeaks, it's the hub itself getting a shine, some times different shoes will help sometimes not.
 
In short, nothing short of taking apart, cleaning, and "rebuilding"the original parts into place with grease is likely to affect the squeeking, and it still might squeak.
 
Well, I found an old thread about this and the answer seemed to be grease over oil in every case. So I am thing I very much diluted my grease in the hub and brake parts. So, I'll try pumping grease into the hub as best I can and if that doesn't do it, I'll take it apart and lube it that way
 
I got a real thin grease gun adapter and shot some axle grease in there. It seemed to push out the old stuff and lube it well. Seems to have done the trick.
 

Latest posts

Back
Top