Been using mostly star ratchet freehubs over the last few years but have recently bought a set of Campagnolo Levante wheels, which use a more traditional pawl style.
The original freehub actually broke after less than 100km due to a failed pawl and I received a replacement freehub body, however I am now a bit confused. The original freehub body/pawl mechanism was just slathered in grease and the replacement arrived completely dry.
Should I try to recreate the original amount? I was under the impression that it should just be a thin layer (I am using white lithium grease) that covers all surfaces and I have the feeling that the huge amount of grease in the original assembly might have been the cause of the failed pawl by causing it to stick.
On the other hand James Huang’s review talked about the freehub being dead-silent, which mine was originally, but which I cannot recreate by using only a thin layer of grease.
Do not grease your ratchet mechanism. Especially with white lithium. That likely did destroy the original pawl. Use thick oil or a very very thin grease that does not dry out or thicken like white lithium does. It will make noise as it should. Embrace it.
Long time mechanic, since retired, going all the way back to the eighties here. Everything Scott just said is spot on. Pawls are tiny with little springs that are easily gummed up. An oil like Silca Synergetic would work well here. I used to use Phil’s Tenacious.
Phil’s was awesome but sometimes prone to getting dirty. That’s what I used as well. As you say, the newer synthetic oil options would be better. Also, I know white lithium is popular but there are better greases out there.
I know the question was addressing pawls, but I’m interested in the no grease on ratchets statement. Generally speaking for Star Ratchets 350’s, 280’s), I use a conservative amount of Dumonde Tech Freehub grease summers and freehub oil winters. Note that I’m addressing a NLGI 0 to 1 grease and that DT Swiss recommends for the Star Ratchet, not standard bearing grease. Most recognise that the recommended DT Swiss Star Ratchet is Dupont Molykote TP-40 or 42? I forget which one. Dt Swiss acknowledges this.
For most pawl hubs (I-9, DT Swiss DEG, etc.) I have observed pawl pocket mushrooming (personal observation was lack of appropriate service) and I have attempted to mitigated this with freehub grease in the pawl pockets. I have this I-9 XD free hub with over 14K miles that show very limited pocket mushrooming.
Excellent posts. I would add, you really can’t go wrong with oil, you can go really wrong with grease. Just be attentive to the requirements and the quantity.
The DT ratchet grease is Molykote 42 but with mineral oil added, basically lowering the NLGI from 2 to maybe 0. SRAM hubs specify Slick Honey, which is like 00, and compatible with many oils. Zipp 88/188 pawl hubs used to use a particular freehub grease that was very stringy. Before that, their 82/182 series hubs specified Mobil 1 synthetic oil. I don’t think they said which one, but I went with a 10w30 back when that was a fairly common oil weight.
I’ve also seen pawl pockets wear out or deform. Depending on the hub, I try to apply a tiny amount of grease with a high moly content just at the pocket. I avoid any grease under the pawls for fear of them sticking down. This can happen mostly with freehubs that spring all pawls with one shared circumferential wire.
Campy hubs sometimes look like they’re using straight Vaseline. I’d get all that out and go with Slick Honey. It’s probably the one you can use most liberally with the lowest chance of messing anything up.
Interesting - the campy hub uses the single circumfertial wire you mentioned and the original freehub definitely had lots of grease directly under the pawls. As I said, this is also my suspicion on why it failed so quickly.
A short google returned that SRAM butter seems to be the same as slick honey - is that correct? Seems to be much easier and cheaper to get here in Germany.
Recently put slickoleum (ngli 0, and often started that or is what gets repackaged as slick honey) in a 6 pawl hub and experienced some sticking. (Seemingly disengaging of all things).
I ended up adding a mL or so of light fork oil. It’s now incredibly smooth, though a bit is weeping past the seal.
I only add this as a warning that slick honey might not be best in all pawl hubs. Next time, I’ll probably use either pedros syn lube (thick but not gummy wet chain lube), motor oil, or just a small amount of light oil like 0.3-0.5mL to cut the NGLI grease
Shimano sell a “Freehub Special Grease for Pawl-Type Freehub Bodies” which I fairly recently applied to a freehub, and seems to have done what it says on the tin so far. Too early to comment on longevity or any potential for premature wear.
