Newbie maintenance questions

[Old is Gold]

For the three speed rear hub, any particular oil and approximately how much do you put in there?

 

[Miq]

The section on Rear Hubs in the Schwinn service manual Vol 1 has lots of info on how to lubricate inner gear hubs (and all other hubs). The blue link will take you to the closest post to the beginning of that section of the manual. If you don’t see it scroll down a bit from that point. The 3-speed hubs are on some of the later pages. Probably page 2 or 3.

 

[Miq]

Service Manual Vol 1

 

[AS-1]

For the three speed rear hub, any particular oil and approximately how much do you put in there?

A little bit of light motor oil is fine.

 

[Robert Troub]

I know there are things on YouTube but I put more faith in stuff that I find here on the Cabe so I figured I would start here.
Thanks

They’re just videos to watch, not gospel, you can actually learn something

 

[Schwinn Sales West]

Here's a way to lubricate your cables. First you only want to lubricate the area that is covered with a casing, not all of the cable. Just put a small dab of light weight bearing grease on your fore finger and thumb. Place the bare inner cable into the grease and feed the cable into your casing. You use your fingers to feed the cable while wiping off the excess grease from the cable. It's neat and easy, and the best part is the greased area is now covered with the new casing so the greased cable will not be picking up dirt laying on the floor.

When oiling a three-speed hub the Rule of Thumb was one teaspoon. Any more will just run out of the hub and make a mess. The metal lipped seals on a three-speed hub just keep the big chunks of dirt out, they were never intended to be seals to keep oil inside the hub. Just use a very small quantity of oil.

John

 

[SirMike1983]

For the three speed rear hub, any particular oil and approximately how much do you put in there?

For many years, I have used 3-in-1 "blue bottle" or "motor" oil. 3-in-1 makes a good, 20-weight oil that comes in a blue and white colored bottle, one that has a little engine depicted on the side of it. That oil is very close to the old Sturmey Archer oil.

Sturmey Archer and Raleigh recommended 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon of oil every 2 weeks (a "fortnight"), adding more if the bike was being ridden for a large number of miles. Their recommendation presumes a fully oil lubricated hub which will periodically lose oil through the dust cap seal (or rather lack of seal). Less oil is required if you use a modern medium-light grease in the outer main bearings, which helps seal oil into the hub. Old style, heavy axle grease should not be used on these hubs.

A totally dry hub will require more oil on the first fill because it needs to get down into all the crevices and is not merely a "top off".

 

[AndyA]

What is a recommended lubricant for brake cables and I suppose it would be the same for shifter cables?

Brother Gold:
One thing you'll see on this forum is a range of opinions, but they are usually cover a good, reasonable range. You can't hardly go wrong following the ones that sound about right. I prefer silicone for lubricating brake and shifter cables. If it's in a bottle, put a drop into the end of the cable before inserting the cable. If it's in a spray can put the little red tube in the end of the housing and give a squirt. Also, if you don't want to take anything apart, you can usually work a bit into the end of the housing at various points. Have fun!

 

[GTs58]

Brother Gold:
One thing you'll see on this forum is a range of opinions, but they are usually cover a good, reasonable range. You can't hardly go wrong following the ones that sound about right. I prefer silicone for lubricating brake and shifter cables. If it's in a bottle, put a drop into the end of the cable before inserting the cable. If it's in a spray can put the little red tube in the end of the housing and give a squirt. Also, if you don't want to take anything apart, you can usually work a bit into the end of the housing at various points. Have fun!

Since the actual cable only slides maybe 3/4" max for a shifter, I like a good silicone or dry lube PTFE. I never use grease of any amount. Wiped on Turbine oil would be the only oil I would use on cables. Cleaning out someone's previous sticky messy lubricating concoction (oil, grease mixed with WD) usually results in tossing it in the trash.