Grease Guarding Surly New Hub

We like the Surly new hubs...they are simple, fairly well made, cost effective and with lots of layup options.

Have built up a number of wheelsets for winter fatbikes using the Surly hubs (w/ Large Marge rims as well as Speedway 70s and 100s). Out of the box and prior to use, we're upgrading the hub with 1) Phil Wood Spec'd bearings and 2) Morningstar Soup / Grease for winter conditions. On a recent rebuild we took it a step further by modifying the hubs and making them grease-able in situ.

Quick, fyi, description: Break the hub down as usual. Prior to reinstall of the bearings we drill a small thru-hole in the body of the hub. The hole is tappered and located dead center on the hub body. Its easier to do this before the wheels are laced-up. Important to clean all shavings and metal filings from the hub; esp the axle cavity. We just black tape the hub to cover the hole.

We remove the seals on each Phil cassette bearing and clean with a good degreaser and repack with Paul Morningstar's Soup. Replace ONLY the outboard seal on the bearing

The hub is then reassembled.

Before adjusting and tightening the endcap, with a small greasegun you can now inject more Morningstar Soup into the center of the hub body. Once the cavity is filled (doesn't take much as the axle fills most of the body void) force / pressure will move grease down through the hub, across the bearings and out the outboard seals...purging the bearing of any unwanteds while refreshing the grease.

Works well on the Surly Hubs. Same concept is applied to Phil Bottom brackets and the platform pedals we use!

[Grease Gurard is a TradeMark of WTB...we DO use some legacy WTB GG hubs, all our bikes have WTB GG headsets and some riders are using the WTB GG pedals]

Martin