I finally got around to fettling the hub on Dave, the utilidale that I brought along on the zombie camping trip. You'll recall that there was a graunchy sproing on the return leg, and the poor thing was very unhappy even after some emergency train-based fettling.
Turns out that the torque of that very heavy trailer had popped the
freehub from its threads! The drive-side bearing is part of the freehub, so with the freehub popped, there's no way the bike was roadworthy. After cleaning out the swarf, the whole thing has gone back together okay and he's back on the road.
It has me wondering, though. This was a replacement freehub (the last one just rusted up after 17,000 miles of abuse) so I may not have tightened it properly. A loose freehub might have allowed this frankly exotic failure mode. Do people threadlock their freehub bolts? Either that or the one-wheel Yak-type trailers just aren't good for bikes, if you load them really heavily (and a heavy rider can damp out the overload-shimmy by sheer mass, and ride
too heavy).
Caveat rider.
Plus, of course, come the zombie apocalypse, pack a 10mm allen key!
Still, he looked magnificent all loaded up
