XTR M900 hub questions

[wickedwheels]

I'm looking to get a first-year FH-M900 rear hub and upgrade it. I was thinking about throwing in a titanium axle from a 952 hub I have laying around and swapping out the freehub body to a titanium one. Also, from what I remember, the FH-M952 had nicer bearings than FH-M900, but I could be wrong on this.

The question is this:

Do you think the rear freehub bodies are interchangeable?

Also,

Does anyone have a new (or near new) M900 rear hub they'd like to sell? 32h would be ideal.

Thanks,

WW

 

[Mr X]

You can swap axles, but you gotta keep the cones on their original hub shells.

Weight saving +/- 10 grams, hassle 100%

 

[scant]

the ti axle & ti freehub of the M950 would save a fair amount of weight over the steel counterparts on the M900.
I'll have some 32H M950 hubs for sale when I find the time to rebuild the needed replacements.

 

[wickedwheels]

I assumed that the axles would be interchangeable. They should have the same thread pitch and obviously the same length. I was more concerened about the freehub bodies. Are they interechangeable? Has anyone done it?

This isn't so much about the weight savings as it comes simply out of my need to make something better. I installed titanium bolts into my titanium quill stem, replaced all the bolts to titanium on an M900 rear derailleur, installed titanium crank bolts into the crank arms... all for minimal weight savings and simply out of my need for doing SOMETHING else.

Crazy, huh!

 

[Mr X]

It happends that freehub bodies are not exactly fitting when interchanging them. You sometimes have to include a thicker shim in between the hub-shell and the free-hub body.

Once the tightening is done firmly with the 10 mm allen key, make sure the freehub body rotates smoothly.

And always use the appropriate cones and nuts belonging to the freehub body in order to respect the proper OLD alignment.

My road winter wheels are using 6600 Ultégra hubs with 7700 titanium freewheel bodies. They are theoritically incompatible with each other, but with using the cones from 7700 within the freewheel side, and the 6600 cones on the other side, I have 20.000 + Km with the wheels.

The best of both worlds.