Well, my first love is injured. My 2004 Torker LX hub has a stripped bolt on one side. So I’m thinking about buying a replacement hub and having my LBS lace it up. I measured the hub flange-to-flange, and it’s roughly 60mm. So, it looks like the Suzue hubs at uni.com are the only ones that will fit. Are these hubs reasonably strong for freestyle and relatively light street riding? (Or, maybe I should abandon the Torker and get a new frame to match a better hub?)
Also, I notice that these hubs have 40mm OD bearings. Is that pretty standard? As long as I get the bearings that come with the hub, the ID doesn’t matter for rest of the uni, right?
Sorry if my questions seem kind of basic, but this is the first time I’ve had to replace broken parts on a uni.
The Suzue hubs should be fine for freestyle, although I think you can probably fit the unicycle.com square taper hub also. 40mm OD is the standard on non-splined hubs, though splined hubs now seem to be using 42mm mostly.
Did you end up getting the Suzue hub from UDC? I think this is the only hub UDC sells that will theoretically work with the Torker LX. Unfortunately UDC list very little measurement info with their parts, so I can’t tell if the hub will work with my existing LX spokes.
There seems to be no info on these forums about somebody actually fixing a broken LX hub. Everybody says to just get a new uni. Well, I already have three other bomb-proof unis, but I want to fix the LX and give it to somebody who wants to learn to ride.
Re-using the same spokes is probably not worth it. It’s a big pain in the butt to de-lace a wheel without bending the spokes.
I don’t think you should replace your uni because your hub failed, but you’ll be better off buying a hub and spokes rather than trying to re-use your spokes.
Wow, this is an old thread. I didn’t fix this until recently.
I actually ended up getting a UDC wide hub, which is technically too wide, but the frame flexes enough to work. I reused the spokes–48 new spokes are expensive for such a cheap uni. And I used a dremel to grind away part of the bearing holders so that the hub could spin freely, otherwise the spokes rub against the frame.
Hi Phlegm. Thanks for the reply. I’m sure all Torker LX owners with busted hubs (just a matter of time I bet) appreciate this info. I would never have thought to try flexing the frame. Did you decide that the Susze was not the right fit for your spokes (flange too high) or did you just want a stronger hub? I just measured the center-of-hole to center-of-hole stock LX hub flange diameter and it is about 55 mm.
I’ll post what I end up doing for the benefit of other LX owners.
Thom, thanks for your advice on the spoke business. I’m sure it’s wise, but I agree with Phlegm that since this is such a cheap uni, it’s not worth spending the extra money for new spokes if possible.
I think it was a bit of both. I certainly didn’t want to buy 48 new spokes, and I think crank bolts are a better design than crank nuts. My Torker LX hub was damaged by stripping it with a crank nut, and it was trickier to use a crank extractor with it.
I thought I would post here in case anyone else considers replacing their hub on a Torker LX 26. These hubs must bend easily because I bent mine during a UPD when I accidentally liftted the wheel about 4 feet off the ground and dropped it. I wanted to fix it with a minimal amount of money since I bought it used for about $50 and didn’t want to throw money at it. I could not bend it in place and the angled crank made the unicycle too awkward to ride.
I ordered the wider hub from UDC as was done in this thread, but I didn’t like how much I would have had to grind off the Torker frame to make it work. I wouldn’t recommend doing that. Therefore, I sent that back and got the Suzue 48H hub. This flange was a bit larger diameter than the previous hub so the spokes where a bit too long. I didn’t want to spend the money on 48 spokes for this unicycle, so I took the spokes down to the LBS and had them cut 1.5 mm off each one.
Having the spokes cut, I had a little difficulty getting the threads to start on a lot of them. It did work out in the end and I managed to do my first wheel build. Now, the LX works fine.
