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Bendix 70 coaster hub 2300 mile test

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I was thinking more at wear of the small cone, which is replaceable, but not as easily replaced as ball bearings, (i.e., if the cones are not made anymore).

Not sure of the significance of the ball bearings wearing against each other, as compared to the weight “bearing” forces, (those in between the cup and cone).
As much as the average bicycle actually gets ridden, it will not make any difference if the bearing cages are removed. 99% of bicycles sold in the USA since WWII anyway were leisure time toys or toys for children that did not rack up many miles over their entire service life before being thrown in a corner or the city dump. I am just pointing out that leaving a cage out of a ball or roller bearing is not a performance modification in any way, going by how essential bearing manufacturers considered cages in high-performance applications. I have had factory racing motorcycles as used in national and world-championship racing events where their engines use ball and roller bearings, and they always have caged bearings, and the bearings cost over $100 each, sometimes hundreds of dollars each, and the cost is happily paid because sticking loose balls or rollers between the moving parts of the engines would not let them run for more than seconds before turning themselves into scrap metal. For a child or adult collector riding a vintage bicycle a few miles each year don't worry about it though. I just put what I have learned from assembling high-performance racing motorcycle engines into what I do with bicycle parts, which is not necessary, but it is not more effort to leave the cage on a bearing in a coaster hub, it is more effort to remove the cage and fiddle with loose balls during it's assembly.
 
Thanks @nortonguy . I had never considered the ball on ball friction for uncaged balls. There are more balls for the uncaged solution, so they share less of the main cone to ball load per ball at least. Like you said, none it matters for a bike I ride around the lake.

I just recently bought my first Bendix equipped bike. It has the guts from a Bendix 70 inside an RB-2 shell. It cleaned up well and rides OK. I eased up the gearing by getting a 22T Bendix Mexico sprocket for it too.
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I like that Bendix offered so many configurations for spoke count and gage. My Newsboy bike has thirty six .105 gage spokes. 😎
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All the models look pretty similar. I can imagine parts from later models end up in earlier shells all the time.
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In my opinion, it is better to stay with the caged bearings for ease of maintenance. The overhaul once a year, is an arbitrary minimum. For coasters that get heavy repetitive use, as the author stated, he got it hot enough to smoke. Everytime it gets that hot warrants an overhaul.
Ease of maintenance.
What you posted makes sense; and was fairly clear and concise, (and non-fictional).

Reminds one of the proverb about brevity being the soul of wit.
 
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Miq That is nice that the parts from late hubs fit inside old hubs as some of the older Bendix hubs were only made a couple of years and parts for them are harder to find than parts for the later hubs. I even have an Asian copy of a bendix hub and it looks like it takes the same sprockets and some other parts, I will have to look into it more closely. I will probably put quite a few more miles on this Bendix 70 this season, but am not on a mission anymore with it, I just enjoy the simplicity of riding a coaster brake bike, and of course it is nostalgic as that is all we rode while growing up back in the 1960s.
 
But that is not a Bendix-70 specific problem, as the bearings on any machine ever made will fail if they are not maintained properly. Most coaster braked bicycles never have any maintenance done to their rear hub for the entire life of the bicycle, but Bendix recommends cleaning, lubing and adjusting the rear hub once each year under heavy use, with light use it says two or more years can pass between maintenance. I would say that my Bendix 70 saw heavy use over the 12 months it ran up the 2300 miles so I wanted to check it out and see what happened to it. I was amazed at how well it came through the year.

I wanted to put this test up because I have seen some ignorant remarks about how the Mexican Bendix coaster hubs were junk and not worth using, and to me this shows that negative remarks about this model Bendix are just that, ignorant.
I have a bendix 70 Mexico hub I want overhauled. Any direction of parts for rebuilding you may have? Let me know. Thanks.
 
I have a bendix 70 Mexico hub I want overhauled. Any direction of parts for rebuilding you may have? Let me know. Thanks.

After seeing how well the Bendix has worn on my bike, and after I sourced it from a bicycle that had sat outside in the woods for 20 years, I really can not believe that hardly any of them need any parts at all, but just a good cleaning, lubing and putting back together by a good mechanic. But if one actually did need parts then I would check the wanted classifieds on this forum ??? Or look on Ebay ??? Those are two obvious sources. Also look in your local facebook marketplace for old bicycle parts or donor bikes.
 
Interesting account, thanks for sharing the impressive results.

I really prefer a coaster brake, and living in flat country as I do, it seems quite viable to have the internal as the only brake on my utility bikes. I have some Red Bands, and a couple of model 70s, also a Yellow Band and a Red Band automatic, as well as the earlier cable shifting Bendix two speed, not to mention some Sturmey Archer and Shimano three speed coaster brake hubs, and haven't had a really bad experience with any of them.

I wonder which of the Bendix coaster brake hubs are generally considered to be the best?
 
I wonder which of the Bendix coaster brake hubs are generally considered to be the best?

I would say that the best Bendix hub is any one that is in good usable condition, and also whichever model is easiest to find parts for has a strong case for being the best. I just go with whatever I find for free or pocket-change and if it is in good shape then use it. I have over 3000 miles on my Mexican Bendix hub now and it still works as good as new, so they all should be good enough to get any job done that most cyclists will throw at them. I like the later ones because the sprockets are easy to find, I believe a lot of BMX era and Asian sprockets will interchange with them. The early sprockets can be hard to find, especially in a ratio you may want.
 
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