Maintaining the Niner Wheel

How to tighten and maintain your Eastern Bikes 9’er Wheel

First and foremost, this procedure should only be performed by an authorized bicycle mechanic. It is important to remember that over time you may need to adjust your looseball Niner wheel. To do so, You’ll need to loosen the hub's cone and lock nuts and then re-tighten as much as needed, its that simple.With the 9’er looseball hub, the cone nut for each side has it’s own special job. The nut on the non-drive side controls the tightness for ONLY the bearings packed into the hub, the hub bearings. The driver-side cone nut ONLY tightens the bearings for the driver. Knowing this, you must tighten each cone nut by itself, NEVER together. Pretty easy, right? The lock nuts, the outer, 23mm sized nuts have a very important job. It is simply their duty to be tightened against the cone nuts so that the hub doesn't come loose every time you ride. The cone and lock nuts have a special relationship and work best when functioning properly together. Take that wheel off your bike, remove any pegs, axle nuts, or spacers from the axle, and let's do this! 
Since we now know what duty each cone nut takes care of, we can now adjust bearing tightness. Before you can tighten the hub down, you're going to need to get all cone and lock nuts loosened up first.

As a rule of thumb, it's nice to first start from the driver side of the hub. Because the lock nut’s job is to clamp against the cone nut, you will first need to separate the two nuts from one another. With a 19mm thin cone wrench attached to the cone nut and 23mm wrench attached to the lock nut, push the two wrenches away from one another. This will unclamp the two nuts from eachother. Loosen the lock nut by spinning it down the axle a few times, followed by the cone nut. Be extra cautious to not unthread the cone nut too much because you don't want any bearings coming loose, rolling away, and disappearing from your life forever. Every bearing counts. Only loosen the cone nut enough to release any tension from the driver, no more. Flip the hub over and use the same technique as before, just on the non-drive side cone nuts. Unlock the two nuts from one another, loosen cone nut only enough to remove any tension, etc. etc. Now you're all loosened up and ready for adjustment.

Once it's time to tighten the hub's bearings back up, we're going to work from the non-drive side first. As you may remember, the cone and lock nuts on this side of the hub control actual hub bearing tightness, and the driver side's cone and lock nuts control bearing tightness in within the driver, so they always should be tightened one side at a time, and never ever at once. Dont forget this, it's important.

Ok, now grab a 19mm thin cone wrench  and place it on the cone nut. You may have noticed that your wheel’s axle (which is heat-treated 4130 cro-moly I might add) is slotted at the end to accept an allen key. Grab a 6mm allen wrench and stick it in either end of the axle. It may be easiest to put it in the same end that you’re currently working on, but that’s up to you. With one hand, hold your allen key in place. Then, begin to tighten your non-drive side cone nut with the 19mm cone wrench. Since you’re holding the axle in place, it won’t spin as you tighten the nut. In adjusting the bearings, we're looking for the happy balance between proper tension and a smooth-rolling wheel. It may take a few tries to find this balance. Tighten the cone nut until it is snug against the bearings. If when you spin the wheel the bearings feel rough and difficult to spin, you've got it too tight. If the axle can be wobbled up, down, or side to side, it is too loose. Since the locknut will keep your cone nuts tight anyway, you don't need to tension them a whole lot. If you feel satisfied with the tension and smoothness of the hub bearings, you may now tighten the lock nut against the cone nut. To do so, keep the cone nut in place with the same 19mm thin cone wrench as used previous, then tension the lock nut against the cone nut with a 23mm wrench. Since we've already spent the time to adjust the cone nut for proper tension, be sure to hold the cone nut exactly where you left it when adjusting as you tighten the lock nut. Clamp the lock nut nice and snug against the cone nut and your hub bearings are adjusted! Flip the wheel over, lets get the driver side bearings taken care of. Follow the exact same method of adjustment as you did for the other side of the hub. Remember this time you'll only be managing the tension for the driver's bearings so don't be afraid to give the driver a few spins to check for roughness and/or looseness. If everything rolls smooth, get the lock nut tightened against the cone nut, same as before, and you're ready for action.

Bearings love grease. Grease is good. Now and again, it can't hurt to re-grease all bearings and areas where bearings sit and rotate. To learn more about greasing and packing bearings in your hub, check out the assembly/disassembly guide HERE. Don't forget that with a little maintenance and love, your looseball hub can roll smooth as glass and also stay tight enough for all your hot stunts.