Profile 14mm Mini Cassette Hub Overhaul

Taking a 14mm Profile Mini Cassette Hub apart is simple. Remove the wheel from the frame, and remove the axle nuts and your pegs. Remove one of the locknuts, it will most likely be the drive side nut that loosens, but it doesn’t make a huge difference if the non-drive side bolt loosens first.

Take a hammer and hit the end of the axle on the side without the locknut. This should pop the axle through the other side of the hub.

You’ll be left with one bearing still in the hub body, and the axle with one bearing and a locknut still on it.

If you have a vice, you can clamp the centre of the axle to remove the other locknut. If you don’t have a vice, then you can thread the locknut back onto the axle about halfway, and then use your axle nut to clamp the axle on the dropout of your frame.

Now you can loosen the remaining locknut and remove the remaining bearing.

Slide the axle back through the hub and the bearing that remains in the hub. Hit the axle with the hammer to remove the remaining bearing. Now you can clean all the dirt, grease, oil and debris from the parts of your hub.

Inspect your axle for damage to the threads and the bearing seats, and slide the new bearing and the cone spacer onto the non-drive side of the axle. You can use some blue Loctite on the final few threads where the locknut will sit when it’s fully tightened. If you are installing hub shims, they should slide on before the bearing.

Slide the axle into the hub body.

On the drive side, slide the hub shim, if needed, the hub body bearing, and the driver spacer onto the axle.

You should probably clean your driver a little better than I did for this exercise. When you’re cleaning, remove the pawls and springs over a light coloured rag so that you don’t drop them. Once you’re finished cleaning, slide the driver on the axle.

14mm hubs from before 2007 had a cone spacer and a separate locknut, newer hubs have a one-piece cone spacer and lock nut combination. Begin to tighten the drive side locknut down. Once you get to the point where it starts to get snug, make sure that the bearings are aligned properly so that they will go into the hub as smoothly as possible. Continue to tighten the locknut down. You will feel a definite stop when the bearings are fully inserted.

Loosen the drive side locknut again, and remove the driver. Re-install the pawls and springs into the driver. Slide the driver back onto the axle, making sure that the driver spacer is still located next to the drive side hub body bearing.

Slowly rotate the driver backwards while pressing the cassette driver towards the centre of the hub. If the pawls prove difficult to slip into the ratchet ring, you can use a slim flat-bladed screwdriver to press the pawls down towards the axle. This should allow the driver to be fully inserted into the hub. 

It should have a definite “click” when you spin the driver backwards, and it should not spin freely when you spin it forwards. If it does not do these things, the pawls are installed backwards.

Tighten the drive side locknut down again. Again, you can use a drop or two of blue Loctite on the final few threads where the locknut will rest.

If you feel roughness, but no side to side play, then you need to “shock” the bearings. Hit one side of the axle with your mallet sharply, but not like you’re trying to ring the bell at the county fair. One or two taps on each side should completely seat the bearings if they weren’t seated before. If the hub still feels rough after 3 or 4 attempts at shocking it, start the process over.