I had excessive play between my cassette cogs, taking the cassette off revealed that the splines are quite chattered up and I believe this is the source of the play.
I've ordered a new freehub from the Trek dealer (W431450), but for the life of me I can't seem to get the old one off. If I understand correctly, there's "cap" that should come off first (that the thru axle goes through) and then the freehub should pull off easily.
I can't get the cap off and I can't pull the freehub off.
I've tried tapping lightly on the outside of the cap to try and provide a little percussion to break it free, and I've also tried that on the freehub, but no luck. I also (maybe stupidly) tried to use some pliers with a bit of rubber tubing to keep the pliers from scoring the cap, but that also didn't work.
Any suggestions? Thanks in advance!!
Side rant: Why is it so hard to figure out these part numbers? I can't find a comprehensive part listing for my bike (2019 model). The part number on the hub takes me to random cookie-cutter webpages from different bike stores that look like they're all using the same Trek backend? To figure out this freehub part number, I had to call the Trek store and have them look at some system they have. If I look up the wheels, the wheel info page doesn't have any information on the freehub either. Very frustrating.