holes in hubs?

Oil 😉

I have a set of Campy hubs and a set of Dura Ace hubs with the hole you describe. It is supposed to be for oil, but I've never oiled them. They mainly look sweet on a vintage bike.

oil? to what purpose would oil serve? i repacked the bearing with grease. i can not see how squirting enough oil in there to flow out to the bearings would be a good thing. it is a very nice old bike.

the hole is for both grease and/or oil.

back in the day, some guys would race with oil in the bearings for lower rolling resistance.

more folks use them as grease injection ports. get yourself a grease gun with a conical (sometimes called a 'needle tip'😉 tip attachment and you can keep your hubs full of clean grease without doing a teardown.

i made my grease gun needle tip from an automotive u-joint grease tip. it's about 6" long and when added to the gun's projection it can reach thru any spoke configuration easily.

be careful nut to appy too much pressure when greasing as it is possible to dislodge the dust covers. on most campagnolo and gipiemme hubs the dust covers have a small hole in them that oil or grease can be injected thru.

Also, be sure to have the Campy logo on the hubs facing the valve stem hole.

well thanks now i know

the idea with the port was that for "record" attempts (nuovo record, super record hubs had these ports), the more durable grease would be ousted by squirting oil into the hub bearings. then for regular riding you could repack the hubs with grease. when the hubs were first out, there weren't any grease gun type tools for cycling - so typically the hub was broken down and repacked with grease after the "record" attempt.

As a kid I pulled my hubs apart to oil them before my first race - and since I'd never pulled my hubs apart before, it took me 4 hours to reassemble my hubs! I also learned that Park cone wrenches are too thick for the precisely machined Campy cones - I had to use a different set of cone wrenches to complete the job.

Rule of thumb - never make changes to your bike right before a race!

Oh and I made less than 1/2 lap of the crit with the field. I don't think the best oil would have helped.

cdr

aa9t8 said:

oil? to what purpose would oil serve? i repacked the bearing with grease. i can not see how squirting enough oil in there to flow out to the bearings would be a good thing. it is a very nice old bike.

There is nothing wrong with using oil instead of grease; except that you have to top up the oil every few days and the excess oil will spread all over the bike.

Bearings that are oiled regularily last longer than those that are repacked with grease at 1 or 2 year intervals. Lets face it, repacking bearings with grease is a tedious messy task that often doesn't get done. The old bikes came with oil holes for all bearings and instructions for the owner to put oil in the holes every week. The bearings in those bikes lasted a long time when the instructions were followed. Today it is cheaper to leave out the oil holes with their cute little caps and we now believe that grease is the only way to go; which is true because there are no oil holes!

campagnolo record hubs still have oil/grease ports.

my old (late 1980's) campy sgr pedals had grease injection ports that were accessed by removing a small set-screw.

i remember a friend's frejus bicycle had a grease zerk fitting on the bottom bracket with brazed-in-place brass tubing to carry the grease to both bearings.

simple maintanance is generally maintanance that gets done.

Some Manitou suspension forks have grease injection ports. Doesn't mean that was a good idea.

I agree, nothing beats proper maintenance. Grease ports are short cuts.