As I mentioned yesterday, I had my wheel bearings serviced (new ball bearings & regreased) at the new Chain Life shop in Thornbury last week.
Cleaning down my bike after yesterday's great outing to Cwmcarn, I noticed my front disk rotor was slightly buckled. I'd also noticed yesterday that braking eficiency seemed less than should have been - that was grease they'd managed to get on the rear rotor!
Anyhow, my front wheel wasn't spinning quite as free as I thought it should be. Then I noticed the bearing nuts weren't tight.
Cut a long story short - they'd only cleaned/repacked one side of the hub. The other side was still dirty, but worse still - they managed to drop one of the ball bearings down inside the hub (where it's effectiveness is highly questionable) leaving a deficit of one in the bearing department. Interestingly, another of the ball bearings is very discoloured - burnt, even.
Don't think I'll be using that shop again for servicing.
Rear hub not yet dismantled, but still noisy/graunchy. So I guess I'm going to have to bite the bullet, buy the ness. tools & get on with it. Nothing like diy!
BTW: The bearings themselves, seem to be about the most basic I've seen: Simply a backplate pressed into the hub, upon which the ball bearings sit. There's then a bearing nut on the spindle which tightens down on the balls, an outer lock nut, and a rubber "cone" to cover it up (pretty poorly). (I'll post some photos tomorrow.) Is this normal for a bike hub/bearing?