I bought a KH 24" stock muni off unicycle.uk.com last Saturday, there was a prompt delivery on Wednesday and I was very pleased to be able to quickly put it together and give it a test run. I’ve only ridden it a few times and haven’t exactly put it through its paces as locally there isn’t anything quite ‘extreme’.
I bought a KH as I thought they were built to take anything! Was looking forward to not having to worry about it acting up but then today I was in the woods and I noticed a clicking sound every time the wheel/cranks rotated and I started to get concerned… I looked over my unicycle and found the wheel was badly misaligned!
The clicking sound seems like a separate problem also and happens more when I’m going uphill/stressing the cranks a bit more.
Please any suggestions on what to do? How could this happen? I was certain I tightened up everything as instructed and I definitely haven’t given it much abuse since it’s only been 4 days.
I’d check, your bearing holders. From what I can see in the picture one holder is alot closer/tightend down to the frame than the other. Try making them both tight but equal distance from the frame
Yeh one of the bearing holders did get a little loose, not crazily loose but still a little loose, i tightened them all up with ‘slight hand pressure’ again as the manual suggests and its not as dodgey but still not great.
Will phone up unicycle.com, wheel is still misaligned, oddly the wheel is consistently misaligned with no ‘wobble’ as such… thanks for responses so far.
I tried to take off the frame to see what was wrong as to be honest the frame was gripping the bearings oddly tightly which suggests that yes i had overtightened them.
After I got the frame off I had a look as the bearings, the right side bearing is slightly chipped as you can see - I don’t know if it’s badly enough to need replacing or not but it doesn’t seem deformed at all.
When I positioned the frame back in place the wheel magically realigned, can I just put the frame and bearing holder back on loosely or do I need to replace parts?
If the wheel is misaligned in the frame and not just out of true I would try taking the wheel out and putting it back in. The bearings may not be seated properly. When I got a KH20 a few months ago I had to tighten the bearing holders a bit more than I expected in order to get the bearings to seat and not feel loose during idling.
Edit: Looks like you posted again before I finished writing the above. I would ride that bearing as is. I would just try to position the chipped part of the bearing at the top-center of the bearing holder.
If it’s only the surface of the bearing that’s chipped, I wouldn’t worry about it; it should work fine. Put the thing back together and see.
The bearing holder bolts should be more than hand tight, but not heavily cranked down. I tighten them to just past where I start to feel resistance. After tightening, spin the wheel to check if it still spins freely; if not, you can tighten a little more and check again.
I do it the same way. They loosen up from time to time (about every 10 rides) but I immediately recognize that when pushing the wheel over bumpy terrain. To be safe I sometimes check if they are still tight.
It’s not going too great to be honest, if I tighten both sides so that the wheel is centred and the gap between the bearing holder and frame is consistent then the wheel is a little ‘loose’ and can rock from centre to the right side.
However when I tighten it so that the wheel is not loose at all it aligns to the right hand side, and although the wheel is firmly in place it also means one side has a smaller gap than the other with the bearing holders!
It’s as if my unicycle is defaulting to having a misaligned wheel? In all honestly I’ve been out maybe 6 times on my unicycle so far, and before the first time I had nice equal distances everywhere and went just shy of the bearing holders in this photo i saw.
I feel like the only thing I can do is buy new bearings to be honest, I’m not sure if it’ll fix the problem but since the problem is possibly due to overly tight bearing holders it’s not covered by their warranty. This was really not something I wanted to go through 2 days before an exam!
Some people have reported that the powercoating or errors in the machining were keeping the bearing holders from sitting correctly. They should be flush with the bearings when you put them on; some sanding or filing could improve the situation if it’s a problem.
I got a new KH recently and having read a few similar threads I cleaned the bearing holders out with steel wool making them very smooth and free of paint buildup. I put a thin layer of grease on the inside of the bearing holder and the outside of the bearing casing (mostly for moisture/rust protection). After putting it together I rode it around gently in the driveway and soon it was a little loose. I re-tightened and did it again. Wash rinse repeat.
It is better to do this a few times and settle it in than to over tighten it in the first place.
You might get away with the cracked bearing but I wouldn’t want to wonder about it personally. I would pay for a little peace of mind (if anyone has any for sale ;)). You can save that one for a spare if you need one in a pinch.
Ok is it just me or is the bearing out further at the top then bottom, so if you spin just the bearing it’s not “out of true” so to speak. Also take your tyre of the bead might be off or something.
Again about the bearing those metal shaving are they from your frame or are they off the bearings?
My had destroyed his bearing on his 07KH 20" not to long ago, as in destroyed I am he was riding along and the whole bearing shattered. so the guts of the bearing were gone… and they were in bits.
All in All take your tyre of and see what happens when the wheel is sitting in the frame by it’s self and go from there, but I would recommend getting new bearing. but UDC might replace them under warrenty
Ok I did a bit of fiddling around to see if I could find out what the problem was.
You can see from the photos I tightened the bearing holders up pretty neatly, and then you can still see the tire in the wrong place.
Another thing I noticed which kinda annoyed me is that the leather seat hasn’t been positioned correctly
But anyway yes the bearing housing is still slightly chipped and when I lay the frame just on top of the wheel oddly the wheel isn’t in the right place, I don’t think its as obvious but it definately still is off to the right.
I guess the problem has to be with the bearing being malformed then, I’m just worried that if I buy another couple of bearings I’ll end up in the exact same situation again because I’ve never tightened them to a point of the wheel not spinning freely.
Oh and Unicycle.uk.com phone lines are only open from monday to friday 9-5:30 so I’ll have to wait till tomorrow before giving them a ring.
Have you tried putting your wheel in the frame backwards to see if it is still off to the right, or if it is now off to the left? If it goes to the left then you know that you have a wheel dishing problem. If it still goes to the right then it’s your frame.
The latter of the two seems likely in this case considering the problems you’re having with the bearing holders. If it is the frame I would guess that they will replace the bearings, and the frame under warranty.
