Fixing/replacing FH-M290 Acera-X Freehub

Hi there,

Firstly - I'm pretty new to bike maintenance, so forgive me if I use the wrong terms. I recently got hold of an old Saracen Terratrax, and the FH-M290 freehub is rather rattly. The noise and the resistance are noticable enough for me to want to repair or replace the part (although I think the physical effect on cycling is probably negligible).

The part looks like this:


I removed the cassette to have a look at cleaning/oiling the freewheel body, but found no way of removing it from the hub. Spraying copious amounts of WD40 and dripping oil all over the thing seemed to reduce the resistance in the mechanism but the noise is possibly even worse now. I thought I might be able to remove the freewheel body and get at the bearings where they connect to the hub, to try to flush it out, but I'm now getting the impression this part can't be removed (although I can find spares online so I'm quite confused).

What's the cheapest way of resolving my issue, and having a nice silent rear hub?

Many thanks

to remove the freehub you need to pop the axle out, and then use a 10mm allen key

Thanks for the reply. Perhaps I'm being stupid but I don't understand what I'd be doing with the Allen key. All I see is the hole for the axle?

If you remove the cone and lock nut on one end of the axle and remove it, you should see an 8 or 10mm allen bolt inside the freehub body. They are factory greased inside so hosing it with WD40 will wash the grease out of it, they're not generally considered 'serviceable' iirc.

Once off, you could try soaking it in something like Landrover diff oil.

If that doesn't help, replace the part. Probably worth using new ball bearings when you rebuild the hub as well.

hopz":2cjytvxt said:

Thanks for the reply. Perhaps I'm being stupid but I don't understand what I'd be doing with the Allen key. All I see is the hole for the axle?

Click to expand...

The freehub body is held to the hub with a hollow (for the axle) bolt. once the axle is removed, an allen key is used to remove the bolt & freehub body.