Rear wheel problem

Cycling home today, I noticed a problem on my current hack bike, that is covering me until I get my new build finished.

There was a nasty grindy noise occasionally coming from the rear wheel. Looking at it, I suspect that something in the hub may have failed, but which bit, I'm not sure.

The wheel now has some slight sideways play in it, even when the skewer is tight.

Any ideas?

what sort of hub is it?

^good question

Sounds like the bearings need checking.

If its cup and cone:

http://sheldonbrown.com/cone-adjustment.html

If its cartridge bearings you have to find out how easy they are to replace in your particular hub. Then source new ones to replace them.

Snapped axle?

Its a Miche Team box hub, its been converted to singlespeed for me.

Attached are photos of where I think the problem is (having been out to find the name of the hub)

sorry for the quality of the photos, camera phone and torch stylee.

You can see in the second one that the conversion parts seem to have pulled away from the hub, the chain line is a bit out too, so I suspect that this is the problem, what's the best way to fix this?

Having tried to figure out what those pics are of I would suggest that the freehub has come loose, but I have never had anything to do with those particular hubs, so I can only guess you will need a 10 or 12 mm allen key to retighten the fixing bolt after you have taken the axle out.
Good luck!

there seems to be some spline visible in the gap

Annotated image :)

that more helpful?

in which case try just tightening the lockring holding it all together, do you have lockring tool?

I have a tiny one on a compact tool I think. I assume I'd need to loosen it first, tighten everything up towards the hub, and then tighten the lockring?

Take the lockring, spacers and sprocket off completely nad clean it all before replacing in case of any grit etc