KH 20 / KH 24 hub moving?

Unicycles and Equipment
1

Howdy all,
I just got my new KH 20. I noticed that the hub seems to have some play. If I turn the unicycle up side down, I can move both cranks at the same time, just slightly. When I ride it, I can somtimes feel it move just slightly.

Is this to be of concern? I’ve tried tightening most things to be fairly tight; except the piece that holds the frame to the hub; According to the directions, this should never be over tightened.

any advice?

thanks,
corbin

2

I should make it more clear: it is the axle in the hub that has the play. Also, it seems to happen in my KH 24 too.

3

i think mine does a bit too, i know i’ve already knocked something out of line in the pedal, but i’ve noticed the hub shifts a bit when i get on

4

yeah, thats happened to both of my kh hubs. the way i fixed them was by tapping the axle out and then using loctite to fix it in place.

5

hmm…i dont’ really want to tab the axle. is it going to hurt anything to not do anything about it? should i try and see if unicycle.com will take it back and give me a better one?

thanks!

6

unicycle.com NZ rang me tonite and want me to send the hub back, and apparently it will be replaced or refunded…

7

Hub slop has been a problem with the recent batch of KH unicycles. There seems to have been some quality control problems on that batch.

You’ve got three choices

  1. Contact Unicycle.com and find out if they will replace or repair the wheel
  2. Send the wheel to Darren Bedford to fix
  3. Fix it yourself

You can find out about sending it back to Unicycle.com, but you’ll end up with some down time as you’re waiting for things to ship back and forth.

Darren Bedford has fixed a bunch of KH hubs. I’m sure he can fix yours if you send it to him. But again, you’ll end up with some down time as you’re waiting for things to ship back and forth.

You can fix it yourself. It isn’t hard to do. A little JB Weld epoxy will fix it. Or Darren Bedford may know of something other than epoxy that will work better.

I recently fixed my Profile hub. It was experiencing axle slop. The Profile is similar to, but not the same as the KH hub. They both have an axle press fit in the hub body. The Profile uses a single keyway and two Woodruff keys. The KH uses six keyways and a splined axle. Steve Howard put up a gallery of a Dissected KH Hub

I just made a gallery of my Dissected Profile Hub along with a description of the repair process.

The repair process isn’t all that hard, but it does require some special tools. If I had a KH hub with slop I’d fix it myself rather than sending it back.

8

Thanks all. I’ll drop an email to unicycle.com.

9

Thanks for the info John, I was able to fix my hub today and it feels fantastic. Very easy to do.

10

Did you epoxy it?
Keep us all updated if the fix doesn’t hold up. I’m curious how this epoxy fix holds up long term for the Profile hub and KH hub.

11

I used some blue permacrete something, forgot the name.

12

Hi John (and others),
I’m going to mail the wheel back to unicycle.com; they said they would fix it. Sigh…i’ll just have to ride my 24 for a while!

My 24 was moving a little too, but my hub was just a little loose. Tightening it solved that problem.

thanks all!

.corbin