IGH, Alfine, Rohloff, Sturmey Archer and frames/bikes built for them...

My Alfine 8 has been a bit rough recently. When freewheeling it's quite gritty and there's an audible difference, it has the distinctive sound of dry bearings. With the rear lifted, backpedalling causes the wheel to spin slowly, so there's clearly some extra friction where there should be none.

I opened it up and and gave it an oil bath and regrease, but it hasn't helped at all. There had obviously been a small amount of water ingress, as bearing ring 7 [see below] had some light rusty gunk on it. Nothing seems particularly worn however, and it cleaned up nicely.

Any ideas? I'm going to open it up again and check the NDS bearings [29]. But my diagnostic capabilities are limited to educated guesses and any help would be appreciated.

Did you replace the bearings in part 7? Could you inspect the bearing race which they run on? I have an old Nexus 8 premium that I was given for parts due to water ingress and refurbished. It will also spin the wheel backwards if back pedaled but so what? I replaced the left and right bearings and that large ring. The shell race had some corrosion marks. I ran it for a few months in 90wt gear oil and it flushed an goodamount of crap out of the mechanism. Then I lubed it with a gear oil and grease mixture. Even better is a semi fluid grease.

I didn't really describe the backpedalling symptom properly. "Gritty as a Tarantino film" would have been closer to the mark.
Anyway I figured out why, see attached. NDS bearing race (26) was fucked. Not sure how I didn't see it before but there we are. Off to order a new part [edit: only in stock in Germany. Curse this pandemic].
Thanks for the help

1 Attachment

Huh. Wonder where the missing bit wound up

I’m having some weirdness with the 3 speed Nexus sg 3r40 that I’ve put on Mrs m_v’s new bike.

Any experts?

Right, Alfine 11 - what's the deal? Have wanted one for years but have heard whispers of slipping issues and all sorts of gremlins.

Use case is a Surly Troll for multi week (and eventually multi month) #bikepacking duty in all conditions, including snow and (hopefully) Canadian winters. Am I opening a can of worms or is this secretly a wise idea? Would the Alfine 8 be a smarter call?

Keenly awaiting any answers to this, I was thinking about the same thing just this past week.
Most of the reputation for unreliability online seems to be repetition of hearsay rather than direct experience.

I have an Alfine 11, but it's with di2 shifting. I love it and haven't had any issues with slipping.
The only thing I have found and have never been able to get an answer on is that sometimes there is a clicking sound when pedalling, but that seems to be coming from the crank area rather than the hub itself. This is intermittent though, so any help on this would be appreciated.

Precisely, seems like a bit of an echo chamber. This is the nearest I've found to real world feedback: https://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/12-things-that-ive-learned-as-an-alfine-11-owner/

1. They don’t like torque
   
2. The Alfine tensioner is as much use as a chocolate fireguard (and doesn’t like torque)
   
3. Develop a smooth pedalling style, don’t mash
   
4. Vertical drop-outs are possible, see #1 and #3 above
   
5. Get the right coloured washers for your desired cable line
   
6. Shimano Hazelnuts are thankfully softer metal than Alfine axles (overtightening essential)
   
7. Liquid Torque is your friend, see #5 and #6
   
8. Looks like a single-speed thoroughbred, weighs like a shire horse
   9.They are reliable and low maintenance though
   
9. An oil change after a 1000km is highly recommended. Less drag, less noise, more smooth speed
   
10. KMC half link chains solve #2… for about a month until it has stretched like nicker elastic
    
11. KMC BMX chain with a single half link solves all your problems.
    

Interesting, thanks for the info! The sense I get is that the Di2 setup eliminates the biggest cause of gripes i.e. cable adjustment.

Forgot to say - mine is belt driven too.

I have an alfine 11 on my Surly disc trucker commuter/tourer and it has been fine for a number of years. It does occasionally slip under high torque. Getting the indexing just right takes some practice. Shifting is solid though. I run mine in vertical dropouts with the 2 jockeywheel chain tensioner.

Annually I do a service on it using the Rolholff service fluids (detergent and oil).

I can agree with #6 and #8 especially...

Awesome, that's very reassuring. I found a video of someone using the Rohloff service kit and was wondering - the fact Shimano doesn't recommend a separate cleaning solution always threw me a bit.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zS8TLpUHs10

Just to counter-balance the above, I have an Alfine 11 Di2 controlled hub and it's miserable. I have to adjust it every 10/14 days (~70km) or so, otherwise gears 5 & 7 slip. In fairness, the fix is just pressing some buttons on the Di2 display unit but on a manually controlled unit I can imagine a huge headache. I don't change gears under power (though I do share the bike with my wife who might be less kind on it) and service it when required. It started happening almost immediately, after maybe 400/500km of riding. The 1000km service did nothing to help.
There's been some chat about Alfine 11 on the cargo bike thread and like the above, some people have had positive experience and some (who seem to work on cargo bikes as mechanics) have not. YMMV.

Thanks for the opposing view - does seem very hit and miss doesn't it?

Have come to the conclusion that sticking with my current 10 speed Deore setup makes most sense, with the option to switch to stainless steel single speed mode with the help of Bikepunx for snow/winter duty. Don't want to be churning through cassettes and chains too too often...

I had an Alfine 11 that self-destructed within 5000km. I replaced it with a Rohloff, and gave away the replaced under warranty Alfine 11.

Sooooooo, I'm trying to set up an Alfine 11 that I got second-hand, with a new JTEK shifter, and having some issues. It mostly shifts really nicely, apart from one of the gears in the middle (I guess gear 6?) shifts to a completely unrelated (& much lower) gear. It's like it's cleanly shifting through the sequence 11-10-9-8-7-3-5-4-3-2-1. Sounds like the first place to go to is the gear cable, but I used the slightly comedy shimano tool to set my gear cable length to exactly 184mm & I don't have a barrel adjuster in the current setup, soooooo.... anyone got any suggestions what/how to fettle?

I don't have a barrel adjuster in the current setup, soooooo.... anyone got any suggestions what/how to fettle?

Definitely put a barrel assisted the system somewhere. You need to keep the cable tension spot on to keep the hub from grenading.

I know you've read the manual but it is very sensitive to the alignment of the coloured dots on the cassette joint. (page 19)

https://si.shimano.com/pdfs/sm/SM-IHG-INTER11_ENG.pdf

Yes, I was pretty disappointed to discover that my Alfine 8 isn't fit and forget. It's actually really fiddly adjustments to the cable tension to get it working nicely.

It’s really not that fiddly though is it.

I've found it pretty awkward. The sweet spot for mine isn't where the coloured dots line up so there's some trial and error in getting them to change nicely and they seem to drift out every so often.

I probably had unrealistic expectations, was just expecting them to work with no adjustments required after initial installation.

The Rohloff is pretty much that. Just needs the oil changing every now and then, but there's nothing to adjust or fettle.

Thanks for all the suggestions, had read the manual but had assumed the wheel was correctly set up from the previous owner so hadn't checked the dots yet, will do so! My experience of Rohloff on our tandem has been as @Five-Hats says - minimal adjustment or fettling necessary, and even when it does need it, it still shifts correctly just slightly clunkily (doesn't mis-shift/shift somewhere else) - hadn't really realised that Alfine seems to be a different kettle of worms (might have sprung for Rohloff if I had, tbh...).

Ive not serviced a rolloff on a bike for 7 or 8 years and its still good. Gonna do it again soon though