I have been in the habit of taking apart jockey pulleys to clean and lubricate the bearings as part of a yearly service. I ride about 4,000 km per year, and the equipment in question is 1997 LX and 2003 XT. Given that the pulleys are not under much load, and that at least modern pulleys have what look to be reasonable seals, I wonder if servicing them is still worthwhile. I suspect it would be enough to just replace them every 5 or 10 years, maybe not even that often. Any data or impressions?
-- Ned Mantei Department of Cell Biology, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology CH-8093 Zurich, Switzerland
I have been in the habit of taking apart jockey pulleys to clean and lubricate the bearings as part of a yearly service. I ride about 4,000 km per year, and the equipment in question is 1997 LX and 2003 XT. Given that the pulleys are not under much load, and that at least modern pulleys have what look to be reasonable seals, I wonder if servicing them is still worthwhile. I suspect it would be enough to just replace them every 5 or 10 years, maybe not even that often. Any data or impressions?
I just squirt GT85 at them when I clean the bike. Never worn any out.
the xt's have ceramic journal bearings - not sure about the lx. with a ceramic journal, they're so hard, you can pretty much rely on their original lube to last them for as long as the rest of the derailleur.
Ned Mantei said:
I have been in the habit of taking apart jockey pulleys to clean and lubricate the bearings as part of a yearly service. I ride about 4,000 km per year, and the equipment in question is 1997 LX and 2003 XT. Given that the pulleys are not under much load, and that at least modern pulleys have what look to be reasonable seals, I wonder if servicing them is still worthwhile. I suspect it would be enough to just replace them every 5 or 10 years, maybe not even that often. Any data or impressions?
