respace 135mm mtb hub to 130mm?

I was thinking about building another set of wheels for the cyclocross
season. MTB rear hubs look like they have better seals for keeping the
grime out. I'm wondering if anyone has tried to respace something like
a Shimano XT freehub to 130mm?

wrote:
I'm wondering if anyone has tried to respace something like
a Shimano XT freehub to 130mm?

I was just wondering about that myself. The issues I can think of are
possibly needing a shorter axle and QR, and of course removing 5mm of
spacer from the left (non drive) side. That would screw up the outer
rubber seal on the left side too, now that I think of it, and that
would be hard to fix.

Another alternative would be to respace your dropouts... but that
probably wouldn't be a good idea if your frame is carbon, or if you
wanted to use normal road hubs also.

Hopefully you'll get better info from somebody with more experience.

wrote:

I was thinking about building another set of wheels for the cyclocross
season. MTB rear hubs look like they have better seals for keeping the
grime out. I'm wondering if anyone has tried to respace something like
a Shimano XT freehub to 130mm?
My LBS does it soemtimes, but the spokes will be at a worse angle at the
drive side after the alternation. All people I know use normal hubs for CX.

Greetings, Derk

wrote:
I was thinking about building another set of wheels for the cyclocross
season. MTB rear hubs look like they have better seals for keeping the
grime out. I'm wondering if anyone has tried to respace something like
a Shimano XT freehub to 130mm?

Sure, just remove the 5m spacer on the left side. Or try
slipping the 135 hub into your frame first. It's usually not
all that difficult.

--
Andrew Muzi
www.yellowjersey.org
Open every day since 1 April, 1971

wrote:
I was thinking about building another set of wheels for the cyclocross
season. MTB rear hubs look like they have better seals for keeping the
grime out. I'm wondering if anyone has tried to respace something like
a Shimano XT freehub to 130mm?

I did it with my 1991 Deore DX hub. 135 mm from the factory. Switched
touring frames recently. From a Trek 520 that had 135 mm rear to a
Redline Conquest Tour that has 130 mm. Redline's half arse method of
converting its cyclocross frame into a loaded touring frame cut a few
corners. The Redline frame has thick aluminum rear dropouts so taking
a spacer out and reassembling the hub so there was an extra 2.5 mm of
axle on both sides still left the dropouts proud of the axle ends.