Boxerworks.com

I seem to have two different /5 rear wheels.
I had the wheel bearings installed by my local BMW guy. I didn't want to make a potentially expensive mistake by doing it my first time on good parts.
But it appears that the hub i had laced is different then my spare /5 hub and perhaps some parts are missing.

The clean one is intended for the bike I am building.
The dirty one has been my placeholder.
The dirty one has a rubber seal and a top-hat like spacer which pops out of the axle hole just a bit.

The clean hub has a different sized area so the same rubber seal would not fit there.

on the Fiche it says a felt ring is needed and then a ring cover for up to 73.
After 73 there is the rubber seal.

So does that small top-hat spacer get used with my clean hub?
And where does the felt ring go and how does the ring cover secure it?
does anybody have a photo of what it should look like?

Thanks in advance.

It looks like you are missing the small top hat spacer on the RH side of Duane's pic.

Yeah, that is what i thought but there is nothing to hold that small top hat in place.
On the /6 wheel, the rubber seal holds the top hat into place. The lip of the tophat fits into the rubber and the axle slides through it when you mount your wheel.
On my setup, the top-hat would not stay in place unless you slid it on the axle after you put the axle through the hub.

Duane's diagram is for a different wheel and... regardless of wheel... it does not show the paper gasket by the star shaped seal holder and the rubber seal that holds the small top hat in place.

Unless I'm mistaken, it appears you are missing the "small top hat spacer" and the felt seal that slips around the outside of it between it and the inside of the "cone". Grease will hold it all in place when installing the axle.

KauaiSlash5 wrote:Unless I'm mistaken, it appears you are missing the "small top hat spacer" and the felt seal that slips around the outside of it between it and the inside of the "cone". Grease will hold it all in place when installing the axle.

Because, what primarily holds it in place is: the axle.

5, 6 or 7 ?

Garnet wrote:
5, 6 or 7 ?

Wrong diagram for my wheel.

This is the diagram and it mentions the felt ring and cover. #4 , #5
Does the felt ring go in the hub or out of it? It looks like it could squeeze between the bearing and the hub's wall. Behind that 'step' you see in the hub's metal before the bearing.
Or sit nicely outside of the hub on that step.
I just ordered the ring cover so i won't know what it looks like until it arrives but maybe that will explain some of my mystery.

The felt ring is held in place by the "ring cover" and they are installed from the spline side. It should be an interference fit, no need for grease to hold it in place, same as the later style rubber type seals. From the looks of that drawing, the top hat spacer (8) is installed as part of the bearing stack from the other side. You could try and see if it would fit past the lip on the spline side, before installing the cover and seal, so you don't have to pull the stack to insert it.

Interesting. I've never had a "ring cover" and never knew I was supposed to because I've always used the stack pic on Duane's site for reference, but that pic doesn't show the felt seal either. Does the "ring cover" do anything other than hold the "felt ring" in place? Between maintinance, bearing preloading, and tire changes I've had my rear wheel off many a times over the years and never had any trouble getting the axle back through the stack. Whenever I've removed it, the "small top hat spacer" and "felt" ring have always stayed in the wheel due to grease.

In the diagram that JJ posted, there is no "small top hat spacer" shown. Is it possible the "small top hat spacer" and "ring cover" are one in the same? EDIT: I see now that as Timo pointed out, the diagram is somewhat deceiving in that the "small top hat spacer" and other spline-side parts are drawn/shown on the wrong side of the hub.

The ring cover is only there to hold the felt seal in place. The ring cover and felt seal were a hold over from the /2 days, they switched to a standard rubber seal sometime in the early 1970s. The top hat rides on the axle and holds bearing preload, the ring spacer only holds the felt seal in place around the top hat. Duanes picture also doesn't show the rubber seal, which would be on the far right.