Another chain anon here, tripfriending to avoid confusion. So my hub has had a lot of friction on my last ride for no apparent reason. Like so bad that if coasting when descending the top of the chainline would just go completely slack, at one point it even threw the chain off the chainring. The wheel has about I'm gonna say 7k-8k miles on it, 95% dry riding.

I took off the freehub (looks like picrel) removed all the grime I could with a dry microfiber, took out each of the 3 pawls and leaf springs, cleaned under them, and then applied light oil to the pawls and some heavier lithium grease to the ratchet ring. It seems to have cleared up the issue. But now I'm worried about why it would do this all of a sudden. I didn't ride for about a week but surely that wouldn't be enough to seize grease? So should I replace the bearings too? It's a PITA because I need to order both the tools and the bearings. There's no obvious sign they're going bad but I don't want to have it catch me by surprise. Throwing the chain was really annoying.