Shimano Alfine 11 - Longer term reliability

[rofan]

[Winfried]

Thanks for the tips.

Is removing the cassette joint only done by hand or do I need to use a screwdriver?

"Fitting Sprocket, snap ring and cassette joint to Shimano Alfine 8 Speed"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DCmTRVgDjO8

[rofan]

after some experience with two leaking A11, which I sent back: Oil behind the Right Hand Dust Cap D and anywhere else,I tried to activate oil leaking in a new A11 under normal and special conditions- movement, position, changing temperature.
To cut a long story short,one first result: there is definitely a weak or sensitiv spot: the drive plate seal.

Tightened conditions: 52ml oil with about 1/3 viscosity of the original shimano oil, tilting the hub about 20° to the right, leaving in this position for three hours.

Oil did not drop. BUT touching and moving axially (a very small amount is possible) the "drive plate seal "oil is oozing out.

low angle shot of the tilted hub

In practice, when shifting, the cassette joint could cause this movement, also a bit axially.

In this experiment I had 52ml of oil. The question is: under which normal conditions will the oil come to the "drive plate (with) seal". Just when the hub is turning and working?

[Brucey]

....Is removing the cassette joint only done by hand or do I need to use a screwdriver?....

Cassette joint comes off by hand, sprocket needs a screwdriver. It is all in the service instructions, no need to look at potentially dodgy videos.

cheers

[Winfried]

Thanks for the infos;

I did an oild change and it drips a bit, but not enough to justify paying someone to take it apart, investigate, repair, and put it back together for half the cost that hub retails for.

Besides, provided one or several parts must be changed on that brand new hub, what can be done about it since Shimano hasn't solved the problem in the four years since the Alfine 11 came out?

[Winfried]

Besides the oil seep I can live with, I'm having a slightly more annoying issue with the Alfine: It no longer switches from gear 10 to gear 11, so I have to forgo Spinal Tap impersonations.

Here's a quick video:
[youtube]2Z8KyjM76wk[/youtube]

I was thinking of removing the cable housing from the bike, and either oil the cable or replace the housing entirely with a high-quality, teflon-coated alternative, but the housing goes through the frame and won't move:

Should I undo the two allen screws at the bottom, without messing with the excentric bottom bracket?

Thank you.

[rofan]

Besides the oil seep I can live with, I'm having a slightly more annoying issue with the Alfine: It no longer switches from gear 10 to gear 11

without cable CJ goes to home position (11)?
Alignment at gear 6 is ok?

[Brucey]

re the cable run; that looks like a daft way of doing it to me. I would expect the housing to come out (with difficulty) but I would also expect to be able to change the inner cable a few times without having to disturb the outer housing.

I wouldn't bother to attack the cable in any way until I had addressed the points raised by Rofan in the above post though. I have known folk assume that they were missing gear 11 when actually they were missing gear 1 because the indexing was one gear out. It is also possible to set the cable up wrongly so that you can't get gear 11 at all.

Another point; eccentric BB setups like that are notorious for seizing up if they are blathered in winter crud and left in the 'factory condition' i.e. with stuff-all grease on them. If that were my bike I'd have that eccentric out and treat it liberally with copper-ease in order to prevent seizure. I'd also wash the road salt off it and fit proper (long as possible) mudguards, too.

cheers

[Winfried]

Thanks for the ideas. Is there a sure-fire way to check if I'm indeed missing a gear, and if that's the case, whether it's gear 11 or gear 1?

Yes, the two yellow marks are aligned when in gear 6.

The cable is very loose when switching to gear 11:
[youtube]kUnKNAdPwG8[/youtube]

Incidently, I did put some SKS mudguards on that bike and there hasn't been any snow so far this year, so salt isn't an issue. I'm waiting for some feedback from the German site I bought it from about the noise the outer housings make, and if I won't mess the bike by simply unscrewing the two Allen keys at the bottom.

In the mean time, I'll read up on extentric bottom bracket setups to understand how they work.

[rofan]

Thanks for the ideas. Is there a sure-fire way to check if I'm indeed missing a gear, and if that's the case, whether it's gear 11 or gear 1?.

do you know your A11 and a little bit of the theory of the wheel gear? What is the gear ratio of your belt drive?
The gear ratio of the A11 is
Gear Ratio 1 0.527
Gear Ratio 2 0.681
Gear Ratio 10 1.888
Gear Ratio 11 2.153
assumed gear ratio of belt drive is 1-> turning the crank 1x => wheel will turn 0,527 in gear1 and 2,153 in gear 11
2 ...... 1x .... 1,054..... 4,306

BTW 11 gears mean 10x shifting

The cable is very loose when switching to gear 11:

should not be, potentially a reason for missing gear1

[Brucey]

in an A11 hub gear 5 is 1:1. If you make a mark on the sprocket and the hub you can see if they go round together in gear 5 or not. The adjacent gears are -12% and + 13% respectively, so it should only take a few wheel turns to reveal this.

Each upshift from there should increase the gear ratio by a similar amount.

You can verify any ratio by measuring the 'development' of the gear, i.e. how far the bike travels in one turn of the pedals. It isn't difficult to measure this within 5% and therefore distinguish one gear from another with some certainty.

cheers

[Winfried]

Thanks for the infos.

In gear 5, the sprocket and hub move at the same time, so I guess there's no issue there.

Do you confirm that the cable should be tight in gear 11, meaning it's currently too loose and I might have lost gear 1?

If that's the case, I have to put a new cable in there, because it has no extra length left at the IGH end (the shop cut it short after the anchor bolt), and it's fully screwed at the "speed adjuster" (don't know the correct word).

[Brucey]

Thanks for the infos.

In gear 5, the sprocket and hub move at the same time, so I guess there's no issue there.

they need to move at exactly the same rate, i.e. after several turns they are still in the exact same relative positions.

Do you confirm that the cable should be tight in gear 11, meaning it's currently too loose and I might have lost gear 1?

if gear 5 is exactly 1:1 and the cable routing is OK everywhere then the shifting should allow gear 11 to be accessed, and you should have all the gears. With the cable disconnected, you should have gear 1. [edit; I meant to type 'gear 11' here..]

If the cable is badly adjusted and this is what is stopping you from accessing gear 11 then you should have pretty much all the following symptoms;

1) gear one is selected in both gear 1 and gear 2 positions on the shifter

2) when you select gear 5 on the shifter you actually get gear 4

3) when you select gear 6 on the shifter you get gear 5

4) when you select gear 7 on the shifter, the marks on the cassette joint line up because you are really in gear 6.

5) when you select gear 11 on the shifter, you get gear 10.

[edit; if the cable is set too slack then the marks on the cassette joint will line up when the shifter says gear 5, and you'll never get first gear in the hub]

cheers

[jb]

Not to split hairs or anything but I thought gear five was actually 0.995:1 There's certainly no direct drive.

[Brucey]

you are quite right.

I guess 0.5% is going to slip under the net in some cases; both the CTC page on IGH ratios and the Wikipedia page list it as 1.000 but this is not what shimano say!

cheers