e*thirteen TRS Cassette creak and noise

[Bike Whisperer]

I recently bought the new e*thirteen TRS 11 speed 9-44 cassette. It's a masterpiece of engineering and enabled me to get a wide gear range (489%) without changing anything else on my 1x11 setup. You can now get a 500% gear range if you buy the Eagle drive from SARM, but this is costly as you need to change all the components.

 

However, after a few rides the e*thirteen cassette developed a serious creak. As this cassette locks 2 parts together, there are metal-on-metal contact points which start to make a noise during use. This requires frequent cleaning and re-greasing, but it sometimes only took 1 or 2 rides before the creak came back. Being a tinkerer and fairly practical engineering type, I decided to experiment for a longer term solution.

 

It turned out to be quite simple so I thought I'd share it with anyone else who has this problem.

 

By putting a thin plastic membrane washer between the two interlocking parts of the cassette to make sure the contact points are shielded by plastic, you eliminate the mental-on-metal contacts and this takes the noise away (15 rides now and still no re-greasing and no noise). You still need initial greasing of the contact points.

 

Have a look the the photos. The first 'Heath Robinson' solution used a black plastic file divider cut out using scissors. Nor elegant, but it worked well. I then decided to hijack my wife's scrapbooking cutter to cut out a precision engineered disc from laminating sheet plastic. This worked even better as it is thinner and made the cassette locking easier, and probably stressed the locking bits less.

 

The disc is about 0.1mm thick, ID: 59mm, OD: 106mm. I decided to use a wide disc to cover both the inner and outer contact points on the cassette as I wasn't sure which ones actually contributed to the noise.

 

I hope this helps you if you have experienced this issue.

[Spoke101]

Good work, did you try marine grease (the really thick sticky Fuchs type)?

[JXV]

Good fix. I think that an anti seize compound like copaslip would also work for this. Even if the grease dries out it leaves tiny copper particles behind that act as a separator/lubricant. They prevent the cold-weld/shear mechanism that can cause this type of creaking

 

Sent from my SM-G935F using Tapatalk

[Bike Whisperer]

Impressed... Andrew from the crowd who import the e*thirteen stuff contacted me within minutes of posting this and is on the horn with the states to find out what can be done.

 

Well done!

 

Just to clarify... I'm thrilled with the cassette, so this is not a complaint, just sharing my findings and solution. I've been using e*thirteen components for a while and it is a quality product.

 

No, I don't work for them, just in case you're wondering.

[Bike Whisperer]

Good fix. I think that an anti seize compound like copaslip would also work for this. Even if the grease dries out it leaves tiny copper particles behind that act as a separator/lubricant. They prevent the cold-weld/shear mechanism that can cause this type of creaking

 

Sent from my SM-G935F using Tapatalk

Good suggestion. I should try it, don't have any as I use the bright yellow, quite thick and sticky, Motorex grease.

[Bike Whisperer]

Good work, did you try marine grease (the really thick sticky Fuchs type)?

Not much marine stuff up here in Gauteng. 

[Capricorn]

Impressed... Andrew from the crowd who import the e*thirteen stuff contacted me within minutes of posting this and is on the horn with the states to find out what can be done.

 

Well done!

 

Just to clarify... I'm thrilled with the cassette, so this is not a complaint, just sharing my findings and solution. I've been using e*thirteen components for a while and it is a quality product.

 

No, I don't work for them, just in case you're wondering.

they redesigned the cassette to address the creaking issues which affected the TRS cassette from day zero. With the new cassette, they also increased the range a bit, presumably to challenge SRAMs Eagle.

I can't find the site which reported the newly designed cassette as directly addressing the creaking issue.

What you have however done, avoids the need to buy a new cassette. So props for that.

[SuperStumpFlyJumper]

I have the same issue and after some surf'n came across this article:

 

https://www.pinkbike.com/news/how-to-silence-your-creaking-ethirteen-cassette.html
 

[Lizzard30]

Ek het selle probleem gehad.. het n 9-44 en n 9-46 op my scalpel gehad..na 2de ride begin dit te kraak.. spuit net water op dan is dit stil.. 9-44 moet n "taflon kit" op he en die 9-46 nie..

Ook al met tegniese afdeling gechat en die probleem bly terugkom..ek kan nie elke 2de ride cluster skoonmaak en lube nie.. ended up met 1x12 upgrade kit...