Friday, September 23, 2011

The $15 Dollar Fix for the Mavic Crapmax29 Rear Hub

My.. Mavique ( french for W.T.F. ? ) saga has been going on for a while now and I am happy to say I finally have a fix. So here goes. I originally got this wheel because I wanted UST with no rim tape. In the short time that I have had them they have been back to the distributor twice. The second time they rebuilt the wheel with a crossmax hub from another platform but the issue still occured.

I am not sure why a big company like Mavic can't fix this as it's no secret this is a problem. So if your reading this your probably having the same issue or trying to find a fix. The problem on these otherwise good wheels is the rear hub. Particularly the bushing in the freehub body. The premature wear of the stock one creates slop, shifting issues, play, noise and more importantly fustration. You don't want to spend $600 + and have these problems occur.

Enter Bike WCM. Found their store while on e-bay seeing what I could get for my used cmax29'er wheels as I had made up my mind to scrap them and stick with my Industry Nines. Read a bit about their bushing and decided to buy a set and give it a try. I ordered the oversize bushing pair as I thought since my rear hub had so much movement they would fit the bill.

When they arrived took the hub apart and decided to install them right away. There really is not that much of a difference
between the stock bushing and the bike wcm version until
you put the calipers on them and the size difference is noted.

You get a pretty detailed info sheet but there is not much to do.

In hindsight I should have gotten 1 standard and 1 oversize
but again given all the aggro I have had with these wheels
I was sure the oversize would work.

They went on with no problem and the sloppy feel that the cassette had was instantly gone. So we threw the hub back together and put it back in the frame but it was evident pretty quickly that I got the wrong size. The cassette would not freewheel so took it back off and emailed John.

Explained to John what happenned and he sent out the standard size for me to try no charge ( again hindsight being 20/20 I should have tried this first ). 1 week later the bushing arrives and again swapped them out. This time perfect fit and no more play, hub feels great.

PROBLEM SOLVED !!!



( note: there are few knockoff's on flea bay but make sure you buy from john5w76 )