Quick release skewers and shifting/brake alignment

[RocketRacing]

Maybe a suber dumb question coming up.

When i push at my rear wheel, i can produce a bit of lateral play seemingly at the hub? Carbon ti hubs. China lightweight skewers. Depending on how tight one choses to tighten the skewers, you can get a variable amount of play. I can mess up my shifting a bit, same goes for brake pad spacing. Same can happen on the front to a degree.

Is this a cheap skewer thing? Did the lbs miss a spacer when installing my sram casette? Hub thing? Frame thing? A common thing i need to accept and live with? I just hate dialing in my brakes to high precision only to have it thrown off the next time i remove my wheel or adjust the skewers.

My money is on a missing spacer.

Thoughts?

Tri rig aero skewers on the way.

[AJS914]

I'm not sure about the brakes but on some frames tightening a quick release often makes the derailleur hanger move. The hanger should be aligned with the wheel installed and quick release tightened it's normal amount.

[alcatraz]

The hub has a bearing preload system. Use that to take the play out. It's very delicate so take great care when adjusting it.

When bearings age they produce more and more play so there will be a point where you should swap bearings. If you're a heavy guy that point could be at half the mileage as someone lighter.

[pdlpsher1]

While I didn't have a problem with the rear wheel I had an issue with the front wheel while using lightweight skewers. The front wheel will not stay centered no matter how tight I install the skewers. I got some heavier skewers and problem solved. In my issue I didn't have play. So if you have play it's likely a hub issue not a skewer issue. But if you can't keep your rear/front wheel centered you might also have a skewer issue.

Radial bearings can't take a lot of preload or lateral load. All you need is the tiniest amount of preload if there's some play. In an ideal situation they shouldn't need any preload. Angular contact bearings can take much more preload.

[RocketRacing]

Good tips here. Thanks

The hub has a bearing preload system. Use that to take the play out. It's very delicate so take great care when adjusting it.

When bearings age they produce more and more play so there will be a point where you should swap bearings. If you're a heavy guy that point could be at half the mileage as someone lighter.

For the preload system, can that be damaged monkeying down the skewers too tight? I dont think i have been too agressive, but just wondering how delicate i need to be.

I am 60kg and avoid rain generally, so i should be a model of durability. The hubs also have maybe 1500k on them. The hubs are just foreign to my lbs and i am on the learning curve. Might do it myself however, assuming i can find solid directions. One thing i have learned is that with exotic stuff, you need to become your own expert.

[pdlpsher1]

Uber lightweight hubs often have Uber lightweight axles, and these axles often can compress when the QR is tightened down too much, which causes excessive preload on the bearings. This is also the reason why bearing preload should be adjusted so that with the wheel off the bike there’s a tiniest amount of play. Once the QR is tightened the play will be gone.

With lightweight hubs and QRs you’ll see more problems. That’s a fact of life.


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[alcatraz]

If the preload system is broken I think you'd see the opposite happen. As you tighten the skewer you lock the wheel up.

I remember being shocked first working on extralite hubs. The preload adjuster is plastic and is threaded on such fine threads it's nearly impossible to get it on there straight. And I see damaged threads on the adjuster even after swapping to a new one. AND it doesn't have a lock function. You set it and leave it. It's got a tight fit so it turns only with some effort.

I'm sure carbon-ti has a more substantial robust system so I wouldn't be too concerned. It's just more delicate than other aspects of a hub. Don't go at it with a hammer.

Just like pdlp says leave some play that then goes away after tightening the skewer to the desired tension. Then you're golden.

[Baal]

I had weird things like that happen with some superlight Ti skewers. I then replaced them with some substantially heavier ones that had come with some older Shimano alloy wheels. Problem solved. Other posters here will know more about what might cause this. My experience was that this was not an ideal place to shed weight.

This was on Novatec hubs FWIW.

One other thing is that the Shimano skewers make it a lot easier to modulate the tightness.

[Alexbn921]

Titanium is a horrible material for a QR skewer. They are far too small and lack the strength at that diameter.
Shimano or Campy internal cam skewers are the only way to go.