Shimano Alfine 11 Indexing & Oil Leak Problems

This is an informal, and certainly not best practice run through investigations in to indexing and oil leak problems in a 4 year old alfine 11 hub.

The hub has had very slight indexing problems for about 3 years. Occuring on 1 or 2 gear in the mid range. However, approx 2 months ago there was a significant oil leak, and (it appears) all of the oil leaked out.

This video shows, the taking apart of the hub, cleaning of the internals. Looks at the seals which hold the oil inside under normal circumstances, and there is a summary at end reporting back on results.

I think perhaps the cup and cone bearing worked loose on the non drive side, which in turn slacked the working internals, perhaps influencing the drive side seal in some way which has caused the leak.

I bought this alfine 11 hub because I wanted a low maintenance option, and it has not been too bad. But I have found over the last few months it has become quite annoying. This strip down was really an attempt to diagnose what was going on. If I can't find a reliable fix then I won't attempt another strip down, I don't have the time, and need a reliable bicycle that is quick to fix when it does go wrong. This process took about 2.5 hours.