Just before the California Muni Weekend I decided to have another go at fixing my Profile hub. My hub has had some problems with keyway slop. The slop was getting worse and it was getting more and more annoying. I had tried to fix it once before using Loctite sleeve retainer, but that didn’t hold. See the thread A picture is worth a thousand words for the details on the Loctite fix. This time I went with JB Weld epoxy. JB Weld is much stronger than Loctite. I’m hopeful that the JB Weld will hold and the hub will be trouble free for years to come.
I made a gallery with pictures of the dissected hub and an explanation of the JB Weld fix: Dissected Profile Hub gallery
Good luck John, the epoxy I used didnt hold out as long as I was hoping. It’s back, and bigger than ever. Plus, I might not be able to get the spindle out to try it again. I’ll get around to it eventually (or when I want to ride it).
Yes, that is a potential problem with the epoxy. If the hub develops any slop again I will likely not be able to pound the axle out again. The axle is in the hub for good now.
If the epoxy doesn’t hold then I’ll take the hub to a machinist and have a pin put in. The problem with using a pin is that you have to unbuild the wheel so you can get access to the hub, and it requires a machinist to do the work which will cost more money. Figure in the cost for the machinist and the cost for rebuilding the wheel and this would be an expensive fix. The epoxy fix is cheap and doesn’t require you to unbuild the wheel.
You do have a big advantage in being able to build your own wheels and do your own machining. If I was able to do all that myself I’d have gone for the pinning option.
At the CA Muni Weekend, Ben Plotkin Swing had a freshly pinned Profile hub. U-Turn did the work of unbuilding and rebuilding the wheel then had a machinist do the machining for the two pins. We’ll have to see how that holds up for Ben. I suspect that it is going to work just fine. I don’t see why it wouldn’t work.
I don’t know what kind of pins would work best. That’s something that I’d take to a machinist and ask them for their opinion. Ben’s hub had two pins put in and they went all the way through the hub.
It’s a piece of 1" x 6" galvanized steel pipe. With the big bar clamp I was using a piece of seatpost that I had. The 1" x 6" pipe worked better than the section of seatpost.
I’m not sure if the keyway slop would be covered by Profile’s warranty or not. It might be. I decided to go with the Loctite fix and then the epoxy fix because it’s easy to do and cheap to do. To return the hub would require unbuilding and rebuilding the wheel. I don’t see the need to go through the warranty return if I can fix it easily enough myself. If the epoxy fix fails then I’ll look into the warranty replacement or else take it to a machinist for a couple of pins.
If it were me I would try to get them to do it. In your case if it comes to the machinist and the pin I would check with them first. You are going to have to unbuild the wheel anyways, why not get a brand new hub if you can?
And end up with a new Profile hub with the same “defective” design? I’d rather fix the problem for good rather than get a new hub that may end up with the same keyway slop in a few years.
I put “defective” in quotes because I don’t consider the design of Profile hub to be defective. It’s tricky to make a tight press fit that won’t twist. I think that all hubs with this type of design (Profile, KH, Onza, etc) are going to have similar problems with axle slop. The real fix may be to pin the axle in addition to the keyway. Pinning means more machining and a more expensive hub.
( I mentioned this in last year’s thread about Profile keyway slop. )
I decided to go to the source and called Profile when my hub developed the dreaded slop. I sent the hub to them directly and they fixed it at no charge. I had it back in a week or so. I had to break down the wheel but I built it back up myself so it was no big deal. It's held up fine since.
I doubt Profile would do anything with a hub once it’s been been epoxied though.
Yes, I probably voided any chance of a warranty replacement if it comes to that. I’m not too worried about that though, because I know I can fix it for good with a couple of pins. I’m not going to end up with an unfixable hub.
I have three Profile hubs. Two muni wheels and one trials wheel. Only one of the hubs has gotten the Loctite or epoxy treatment. The other two hubs have been left alone since they don’t have any slop. If the other two hubs have any problems I’ll consider the warranty fix.
They did not replace the hub shell. I asked Corey (I think he's the one who actually developed the hub) what he did. He said he replaced the axle, didn't say much more.
