[Closed] Bottom bracket service or replace?

try tightening it up, cups and axle.
if it's on its way out you might get a bit more life out of it.
works for me.

Will do. Looking at CRC they are sealed bearings if that makes a difference.

You can just get the bearings from Ebay...i cant remember the bearing number right now.
You will prob need the plastic top hat spacer tho, these usually break when you try to remove them. Easy to pop them out with socket & vice.

Thanks.

I replaced the bearings on my shimano external BB cups. It was quite easy to bash out the old ones and then push new ones in.

Not sure which bearings you'd need but I am sure google can help.

If the race face ones are like Shimano, there is a top hat cover over each bearing. Be gentle getting it out as you need it to cover the new bearings.

Ok so, remove the BB with an external BB tool then, is it easy to work out from there?

Right another option, rebuild this BB or get an XTR one for £34?

XTR on Rose Bikes for 17EUR

Shimano BBs are the way to go with RF cranks IME.

If you want complete peace of mind then Hope do a ceramic BB.

Rose bikes, €17, that is mental. I'll order them when I can work out there website.
Mental!

If you can't read german, try [url= http://www.rosebikes.co.uk ]the English site [/url]

[i]It was quite easy to bash out the old ones and then push new ones in.[/i]

Is this that bad advice the other thread is about?? 😉

It really depends on the make of BB

RaceFace do spare bearings with the thin seals in a kit from CRC for approx £12.
Top-hats are also available if you wreck the old ones....get them hot/soft before removal...boiling water will not damage the shells and the bearings are scrap anyway.

So, if you can dismantle the old pair without damaging the shells, get the kit and see how few/many miles the new pair last.

PaulD

Just replace the whole BB we do some bling one that are a load better than shimanos [url= http://velo-m.co.uk/components/bottombracket/token-external-mtb-bottom-braket.html ]Token[/url]

I did find the English site. It was playing up when I tried to buy.
For £16 I think the xtr is better than me frikin around with the old one.
How long do they take from Germany?
As for the 'Token' ones, my bike is very unbling. I just need long lasting, they look nice though.

Having done bearing swaps and then seen how cheap shimano are at Rose, I buy new ones from rose... Once you've priced new decent quality bearings and a top hat or two its not worth the effort.

Postage is steep at Rose so I bought 2, as with 4 bikes, 2 fitted with RF we'll need em at some point!

I recently opened up 2 old XT HT2 BBs that I had.One I managed to rejuvenate by using a stanley knife to carefully lever up and remove the top hat,I then degunked it and regreased.I tred the same on the sEcond ONE i HAD but although it freed up it was still grumbly.

Worth a go,for the small amount of time it takes,but not worth sourcing new bearings for them when they can be got so cheap as a complete bb.

The saga continues. I popped the chain off (lost the pin obviously), got the bike up on the stand, the BB spins nice and smooth with no play. Does it only show under load? Meanwhile there is slight play in the back wheel. Grrrrrrr

it might only appear under load, you put a lot of torque through a crank and BB, and the play will only occur at a particular point of rotation. it might even only appear if there is a small amount of side loading or something.
then again it might be your pedal, saddle or wheel that is causing the knocking.

I think I'll do it anyway. Can't seem to register on Rose website, it doesn't like my address.
There's a good bearing supplier in Banbury so I might try and get the replacements from him, and if that doesn't work, have another go at the Germans.

If you go that route, bearings are 61805-2RS, leave the cups in the frame as it gives a solid base to work from,and dunk the whole BB in a pan of boiling water to expand the ally cups before drifting the bearings out.It's also worth checking the cups are tight in the frame too, we've had a few people assume their BB was worn, carry on riding to get the last few miles out of it, and destroy their BB shell in the process.May be worth getting your BB shell measured, and faced back to min width if needed, if running RF cranks, as they're designed around an exact width to avoid pre-loading the bearings to death.

Coatesy, thanks for that. It sounds complicated.
Can you explain drifting?
Feeling like it may be a bit beyond me.

A drift is a length of rod that you hit with a hammer, it's more accurate to hold one against the bearing and hit that, than hitting the bearing directly with the hammer(virtually impossible anyway).

Hi
I just registered to offer my findings on bottom bracket bearings as I recently faced a similar problem.
I have a race face bottom bracket that completely ceased after washing the bike and leaving it. I looked at buying another race face bottom bracket but after reading lots of reviews, all saying how bad the bearings are in the race face ones I decided against it and had a look at others. whilst looking I found that race face sell an overhaul kit for the x types. I stripped my bb from the bike and had a look and decided that I could design a tool to press the old bearings out and press a new one in. so I drew up the cups and bearings on 3d cad and designed the tool to do it. I got it turned on a lathe by a friend the other night and it worked perfectly.
I faced a quandary though when I came to buy new bearings. I wanted to put some high quality replacements in and these were going cost £24 when I could get a new xtr bb for around £20.
After much more googling and speaking to a local bearing shop I decided to put the new bearings in my race face cups. The bearings I bought are the highest quality available with the best seals. Race face use full complement bearings which means they put in more balls without a separator. This means they have to put a little notch in the inner and outer rings to get the balls in, this notch allows grease out and water/dirt in causing the bearings to fail.
According to a knowledgeable old guy at the bearing shop the main priority for bearings on a bike is good seals. You can buy bearings with stainless bearings but if the seals are rubbish they will still fail due to wear contamination, the balls just won’t rust like steel ones. I looked at ceramic balls too but decided against it for a few reasons but mainly the cost of high quality ones.
If you don’t have a press available you could use stuff you probably have available already, to drift the bearing out you need to find something with an outer diameter of just under 26mm Maybe a socket). the inner race of the bearing is 25mm and the inside of the cup is 26mm. you can start drifting it out on a flat surface (preferably wood so it doesn’t damage the cup) but you will need to find some way of supporting the outer edge of the cup to get the bearing fully out. To get the new bearing in use the old bearing as a drift and hammer gently ensuring the bearing is square to the cup.

Andy

Cheers Andy. I got as far as removing the cranks. The bearings seem smooth. Now struggling to get cranks back on (RFace ride xc). My local bearing shop quoted £9 each. So I think I'll go xtr, as soon as I can register at Rose. Ironically as I was researching this stuff last night I missed a new xtr BB going for £20.
Oh well

I have had race face on several bikes, always the first things to go. BB's are made of cheese and wouldn't last a year! Swapped to XT when I had the chance and 2 years in no probs. Ditch it.

Yeah, I think I will.

6805 bearings is what you need. It's pretty easy to do but sometimes the bearings are a bit stuck and not so easy to remove. Being a shop I have the tool for the race face BB's and bearing extracters in gerneral. This make life alot easier.

If i can't even get the crank back together, I dont think there's much hope in me doing a BB rebuild. Replacement is as good as it gets I think.

Do you want to sell me your old cups?
The ones on my cannondale started creaking this morning.
Andy

Andy, sure.
What's your email?
I'll send them, if they're any good, send me a fiver, or whatever.
The spacer is shagged. The wrong number of washers meant it is crushed a bit. Which is why it was playing up.

XTR on order from uk bike store (£5 more than the Germans since no p and p)

XTR, excellent choice! Never again will I buy RF.