I received the front and rear wheels of a Shamal Ultra (high-performance road wheelset) from a customer.
Starting with the front wheel.
Just as the customer reported, both wheels have a grinding feel when I manually rotate the hub shaft.
It's certain that some parts need replacement,
but I want to minimize the scope of what needs to be changed.
For example, instead of replacing the entire bearing kit on both sides of the hub,
if I can determine that only the right cone is bad,
I'll replace just that.
When I loosened the lockbolt on the cone adjustment nut,
there was something brown stuck to it.
It's not rust—it came off when I wiped it with my finger.
It was anti-seize grease for the threads.
It's probably Finish Line's product,
a copper-filled grease that uses copper's excellent heat conductivity
to absorb the heat generated from thread galling.
It's also applied to the internal threads on the hub shaft,
but unless one of the threads is titanium (which seizes extremely easily),
there's no need to apply this.
The left cone. I haven't checked the ball race yet,
but the condition isn't bad.
The right cone. Hmm, this looks bad.
There's spalling on the right cone, and
there's spalling on the right ball race too.
This wheel uses USB bearings (hybrid ceramic bearings), and in many cases
if the spalling on the ball race side is minor,
it doesn't require replacement (or at least doesn't appear to).
↑In the image, the lower left is the hub retainer bearing from the left side,
the lower right is from the right side,
and the top is new.
The right bearing retainer is generally duller,
with some balls showing extreme damage mixed in.
For the front wheel, I replaced all the bearing parts on one side.
When buying ball races, cones, and retainers individually,
the manufacturer supplies them in 4-piece sets, and we sell them individually,
but when replacing an entire side, it's cheaper to use the bearing kit sold as
a 2-piece set (left and right), so I calculate it that way.
Before replacing the hub parts,
I checked the centering temporarily,
and there was already some runout at that point.
Whether the wheel center changed due to replacing the bearing kit, especially from the press-fitting work, I can't say for certain.
The image above shows the state after replacing the hub parts,
and the grinding sensation in the hub rotation is almost gone.
Apart from the spalling, there's that characteristic slight stiffness from new ball races,
but after a little use, it breaks in and becomes smoother.
I did truing and centering.
Now the rear wheel.
The right cone just has clean wear marks
with no spalling, and the right ball race was fine too.
I forgot to take a photo before removing the left ball race.
The left ball race has spalling, and
the left cone, while not showing spalling, had a wear pattern that wasn't a continuous fine line in some areas.
I tentatively reassembled it with just the ball race replaced, without the cone and retainer,
and the grinding sensation reduced considerably,
but it wasn't fundamentally fixed, so
I ended up replacing all the bearing parts on the left side.
↑In the image, the left is the left side bearing,
and you can see it's duller than the right side bearing.
I also replaced both bearings on the freehub body—
both the inner and outer ones.
↑The replaced parts
After replacing the parts, the temporary centering showed
the rim shifted to the right, even though it was perfect before the replacement.
I did truing and centering.
Starting with the front wheel.
Just as the customer reported, both wheels have a grinding feel when I manually rotate the hub shaft.
It's certain that some parts need replacement,
but I want to minimize the scope of what needs to be changed.
For example, instead of replacing the entire bearing kit on both sides of the hub,
if I can determine that only the right cone is bad,
I'll replace just that.
When I loosened the lockbolt on the cone adjustment nut,
there was something brown stuck to it.
It's not rust—it came off when I wiped it with my finger.
It was anti-seize grease for the threads.
It's probably Finish Line's product,
a copper-filled grease that uses copper's excellent heat conductivity
to absorb the heat generated from thread galling.
It's also applied to the internal threads on the hub shaft,
but unless one of the threads is titanium (which seizes extremely easily),
there's no need to apply this.
The left cone. I haven't checked the ball race yet,
but the condition isn't bad.
The right cone. Hmm, this looks bad.
There's spalling on the right cone, and
there's spalling on the right ball race too.
This wheel uses USB bearings (hybrid ceramic bearings), and in many cases
if the spalling on the ball race side is minor,
it doesn't require replacement (or at least doesn't appear to).
↑In the image, the lower left is the hub retainer bearing from the left side,
the lower right is from the right side,
and the top is new.
The right bearing retainer is generally duller,
with some balls showing extreme damage mixed in.
For the front wheel, I replaced all the bearing parts on one side.
When buying ball races, cones, and retainers individually,
the manufacturer supplies them in 4-piece sets, and we sell them individually,
but when replacing an entire side, it's cheaper to use the bearing kit sold as
a 2-piece set (left and right), so I calculate it that way.
Before replacing the hub parts,
I checked the centering temporarily,
and there was already some runout at that point.
Whether the wheel center changed due to replacing the bearing kit, especially from the press-fitting work, I can't say for certain.
The image above shows the state after replacing the hub parts,
and the grinding sensation in the hub rotation is almost gone.
Apart from the spalling, there's that characteristic slight stiffness from new ball races,
but after a little use, it breaks in and becomes smoother.
I did truing and centering.
Now the rear wheel.
The right cone just has clean wear marks
with no spalling, and the right ball race was fine too.
I forgot to take a photo before removing the left ball race.
The left ball race has spalling, and
the left cone, while not showing spalling, had a wear pattern that wasn't a continuous fine line in some areas.
I tentatively reassembled it with just the ball race replaced, without the cone and retainer,
and the grinding sensation reduced considerably,
but it wasn't fundamentally fixed, so
I ended up replacing all the bearing parts on the left side.
↑In the image, the left is the left side bearing,
and you can see it's duller than the right side bearing.
I also replaced both bearings on the freehub body—
both the inner and outer ones.
↑The replaced parts
After replacing the parts, the temporary centering showed
the rim shifted to the right, even though it was perfect before the replacement.
I did truing and centering.