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I swore by cone wrenches for 4 years, then a $9 bearing press made me eat my words
I have always adjusted cup and cone hubs by feel with two cone wrenches, and I would argue with anybody at the co-op in Portland who said otherwise. Last Tuesday I was fighting a rear wheel that kept coming back loose after every ride, and I was on my third try when the guy next to me handed me his bearing press and said just seat them first. It took me 40 seconds to press the races in square, and the hub spun smooth with zero play on the first try. I had been chasing that wobble with a wrench for 20 minutes and it was never going to work because the cups were never sitting straight to begin with. I still use my cone wrenches for the locknut, but the press does the real job now. Anybody else switch over, or do some of you still press them in with a hammer and a block of wood?
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the_holly27d ago
Laughed reading this because I did the exact same thing last winter on a Shimano rear hub that kept loosening up on me. I must have had those cones out and back in four times with wrenches, getting more and more annoyed, before a buddy let me borrow his press and it was done in under a minute. The whole time the issue was that I was seating the cups crooked by tapping them with a rubber mallet, and no amount of careful wrench work was going to fix a race that was sitting at an angle. Funny how you can do something one way for years and think you have it dialed, then one cheap tool shows you what you were missing. Cone wrenches still earn their keep for the locknuts and the final feel check, but I am never going back to hammering races in by hand.
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