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I had a broken axle, and on the side where it broke (I think) these are the bearings that looking at.

enter image description here As you can see, there is a track of bearings, and then on the other side, two more bearings hiding behind it; we are looking through a freewheel. Are those two bearing supposed to be there (presumably along with a bunch of their buddies) or did they simply fall out of the other tracks?

Móż
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user1833028
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    It's a little hard to guess, but most hubs would have 9 balls in the near race. Since I count only eight, one of the balls beyond is likely a refugee from the near race. The other ball likely came from somewhere else, or was "lost" during maintenance and then replaced with a new one. – Daniel R Hicks Feb 16 '16 at 20:31
  • So there should be only two bearing races in there? – user1833028 Feb 16 '16 at 20:54
  • It's been awhile since I looked inside a freewheel, so I don't recall what is where. But I don't think there's a second race immediately behind that first one. – Daniel R Hicks Feb 16 '16 at 20:56

1 Answers1

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There are bearing races on either side of the hub, and in my experience there is not nearly as much space between the bearings as your picture shows. Having replaced several axles in older hubs, it always seems as soon as you pull the axle out the bearings fall into the inner space of the hub.

The two bearings you can see are likely from this kind of problem. Remove all the bearings, clean and grease the races. Clean the bearings and replace them. Most of the time they are the same size on both sides but you will want to make sure. When you replace them there should only be a little bit of play/space between them. It's normally obvious if you've tried to put too many bearings on one side.

Gary.Ray
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