Hi,

I am very satisfied with my Zipp 404 FC when it comes down to riding, speed, feel, looks, but....
Wheel is now 5 month old and just 2-3000km...

I can't get rid of the slack in the hub...
I can move and hear the slack when I am pushing the wheel outends...

Of course did tighten the hubs just to the level that you cant feel a rub of the bearings... so to my opinion I can not tighten further... and besides that the slack is never completely gone, it gets worse after 200-400km....

Frontwheel is better, the slack on that hub is minimal...

Anybody same expiriences?
And more important; WHAT TO DO???

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Pascal

My Colnago C59 MTBK Camapgnolo Hyperon Ultra 2 and Campi SR11
http://rodebaron51.imgur.com/all/

Have you cleaned the internals & got ride of excessive lube / grease debris? Any unnecessarily material on the interfaces will make it feel like the pre-load is correct only to move around once you start moving & have the hub loaded with rider weight. The pawls need the absolute minimum of lube & generally (imo/ime) run faster without any thing else on bearing / axle interfaces.

The hub (ime) if anything will break in & need less messing around with the pre-load once you have a 1-2k kms or so on them.

How tight are you doing up the QR? There is also a mix of pre-load with the lock ring & tension on the QR to consider as these all factor into how tight the bearings run & thus how much play you have side to side when mounted up.

If you are using lightweight QRs you may not be clamping down with enough force to tighten things down so everything sits as it should. I use the 188 hub with extralite aliens2 QRs & use a fair amount of clamping force so that it leaves a clear impression in my hand once the clamp is locked down - I know that a skinny QR such as a lightweight skewer would not be able to offer the same amount of clamping pressure.

FWIW - the wheel (I have the 404 FC in CC) will always have a certain amount of side to side deflection. Its not necessarily a bad thing. There is a certain amount of tension give in the spokes which means you get side to side movement of around +/-2mm before applying force thru the pedals. I run the brakes quite wide open with around 4mm either side to give full clearance for out of the saddle climbing. This is perhaps another way to adopt to the nature of this particular wheel / hub & build. I used to get some rubbing on steep gradients but its not happening any more.


Hope that is of some assistance.

once the preload is set right, you can still have play that allows the rim to move side-to-side. this is not lateral play at the bearings, rather it is radial play at the hub shell bearings. specifically, there is extra space between the axle and bearings. this is the single biggest complaint i have with zipp wheels, which overall i love.
the fix, which is temporary and will likely have to be done once or twice a year, is grease. a heavy, sticky grease coating the axle before installation will take up the space between the bearing and axle. one would think this fix would last all of one ride, but since the space is very small, it actually lasts a reasonable amount of time. i have used zipp's freehub grease and it works ok for this application, but they list another they call "military grease" which is better for this.
i use a bit more than the smallest possible amount of grease for the freehub, as the grease damps noise and the loud ratcheting can be annoying. freehub grease drag is only affecting coasting, so if im worried about efficiency, i keep pedaling.

I just got a pair of 404's, and mine has play too.

The manual says something about the play being normal from the factory. It allows the bearings to seat once load is applied to the hubs.

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I have 303 FC's with the same problem. It's so annoying to hear the brake surface of the rim grazing the brake pad from time to time. While climbing and on flat. I've adjusted things three times already. The front being better than the rear by far. Hard to believe this is a problem with Zipps. I think we need a fix!
And once I feel I've adjusted to a notchy feeling on the bearing, I back it off a tad to smooth only to be derailed once I tighten the cap in place. So frustrating.

Hi all,

Normal lateral slack is indeed no issue (the mentioned 2 mm or so).

What I am talking about is "real" slack, causing noise when moving the rim without big force... you hear the "clicks" from side to side movements... this can't be right...

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Pascal

My Colnago C59 MTBK Camapgnolo Hyperon Ultra 2 and Campi SR11
http://rodebaron51.imgur.com/all/

So what does Zipp have to say about this?

Hi Zigmeister... not much till now... dropped ZIPP USA a tweet yesterday, but no reply...
Will send a mail to zipp themselves...

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Pascal

My Colnago C59 MTBK Camapgnolo Hyperon Ultra 2 and Campi SR11
http://rodebaron51.imgur.com/all/

Just had a good chat (online) with Zipp.... its a common issue I guess...

He told me to contact the Dutch distributor... they will send me replacement axels....

Keep you opsted on the outcome!

So far excellent customer service!

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Pascal

My Colnago C59 MTBK Camapgnolo Hyperon Ultra 2 and Campi SR11
http://rodebaron51.imgur.com/all/

Interesting, sounds like some QC/tolerance issues, or just general wear/tear?

My 808s did this and I just cleaned out the grease from the bearings and they haven't since. It seems worse on anything before the 2012 MY

Zipp;

Denham: the distributor may just send you a replacement axle - grease well with corrosion proof gease before you install

Denham: the axle has fine grooves that become crushed below the bearings and this leads to bearing play

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Pascal

My Colnago C59 MTBK Camapgnolo Hyperon Ultra 2 and Campi SR11
http://rodebaron51.imgur.com/all/

I have to send the wheels to the national distributor.... so I will have no wheels for a week or so... grrrrr

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Pascal

My Colnago C59 MTBK Camapgnolo Hyperon Ultra 2 and Campi SR11
http://rodebaron51.imgur.com/all/

Hmmm... wheelset is gone a week and heard today that AGU (Dutch distributor of Zipp) cant fix them so they had to send them to..... To get the slack out of it... will take at least 2 more weeks grrr

I got a set of Mavic Cosmos as temp replacement....
Good thing about them; they break fantastic... nothing beats alloy rim and rubber pads!
For the rest I want my 404s back!
But better than not to ride

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Pascal

My Colnago C59 MTBK Camapgnolo Hyperon Ultra 2 and Campi SR11
http://rodebaron51.imgur.com/all/

No excessive play in my 188 rear hub.

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