Strange thing happened to Mavic Axle

[BDF]

This weekend, a strange thing happened to my son's rear Mavic axle. (which resulted in a premature ending of our ride as mentioned in another thread)

 

While we were riding, he heard a squeak and then stopped, telling me that it felt like his brakes were stuck. I checked the brakes and there was clearance on either side of the disk so they were not the problem. I took off the wheel and the axle was totally stuck. When the wheel turned, it was the axle rotating in the wheel lugs where the skewer tightens against the lug and the axle. There was already some damage to the aluminium!

 

The only thing that turned in the axle was the end cap.

 

When we eventually got home I stripped the axle. To my surprise, NO BEARINGS were damaged! But what did seem to happen is that the ring that sets the tension against the bearing had tightened itself to the point that the axle no longer moved. This part is behind the disk rotor and cannot be accessed without removing the rotor.

 

I completely stripped, cleaned and re-assembled and it all works again without replacing anything but grease! Still have to test on a real ride but all seems well again.

 

Any ideas on what would cause this?

 

[Skinnyone]

I have seen this before, there should be an o-ring on the axle to stop it from moving and self adjusting, if this is dirty or damaged then this can happen...

[BDF]

There is an o-ring. To be honest, the whole axle was dirty. We bought the bike in November second hand and I had serviced or had serviced (Shocks)  the entire bike but not the wheel hubs! Just spun them to feel for smoothness or grittiness of the hub. They seemed slightly rough but ran freely. I wrote the roughness down to the age of the bike (2009). The seller "told me the bike had not been ridden for three years but the last thing he did was service it" Ja....

[Skinnyone]

It could have been old grease on the O-ring...when grease gets old it becomes thick and sticky, so if it did sit for that long then that is a possibility....

[BDF]

I am hoping that the same thing doesn't recur because I didn't replace the o-ring. Inly the grease!