On yesterday”s Toys For Tots ride we were a mile or two from returning to the truck when my coaster brake briefly locked up on me and started making a terrible noise. I quickly investigated and the only thing I noticed was the hub had a lot of slop in it and the tire was now rubbing on the frame. I manged to noisily hobble in, to both the amusement and embarrassment of those riding with me.
Today I went to check the wheel out and noticed the coaster brake arm strap had broken and the arm had spun around. Even though the wheel is new, instead of just replacing the strap and tightening the adjusting cone, I decided to clean and re-grease the hub since it”s a cheapo Falcon wheel set. Sure enough a couple of the bearings had no grease. These type hubs are a simple, quick rebuild.
Since I was already up to my elbows in grease I decided to rebuild a Bendix 2 speed Automatic yellow band that I”d been putting off. I”d never done a yellow band but did successfully rebuild a red band earlier this year (red band has discs, yellow shoes). All in all it went pretty smoothly. Tomorrow I”ll have to put it on a bike to test it.
