You can try shooting compressed air on the inner sleeve (computer keyboard cleaner air) to try to shrink the sleeve a bit and continue to hit it. For bb replacements I just went with Chris king press fit. Little more expensive but serviceable without removing it and a 5-yr warranty.

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Andy Mullen
Team Zoot

Cool. I'll grab the compressor out of the shed before I get the heat gun out.

I was actually thinking of using a hack saw to cut out the remaining part of the bearing out. It will destroy the sleeve, but as I'm replacing that anyway, that's not a problem.

Thanks for the hint and the Chris King recommendation

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TriDork

"Happiness is a myth. All you can hope for is to get laid once in a while, drunk once in a while and to eat chocolate every day"

I have that same tool. It is really made for the circlip/bb30 setup because all you need to knock out is the bearing.

I'm not clear on exactly how much of the PF30 BB you have left on the one side, but one tool that will knock those things out while intact is a headset cup remover. The split tube variety as here. You can even bend the tabs out a bit to force the tool as far against the inside back of the PF cup/bearing.

I just removed a Wheels Manufacturing thread together PF30 BB as it seemed to be squeaking. The tolerance with it and my frame were such that the side that was supposed to press in went in by hand. It turns out it may not have been the BB squeaking, but I need a few more rides to confirm. After install the Wheels Mfg BB didn't spin too smooth. As with any BB the drag probably amounts to nothing, but having more drag than the cheepo plastic cup SRAM models didn't inspire confidence.

For now I pressed in another plastic cup SRAM BB. I used to be more concerned about getting them out, but the headset tool worked fine for me, even removing a very tight fitting aluminum cup PF30 BB from another frame.

PF30 install goes really smooth if you have a decent press (headset press or purpose made bearing press) and the correct drifts. Every manufacturer seems to have their own requirements/recommendations for grease.

I actually made my own one of those headset tools, out of an old 27.?mm ali seatpost (to fit through the 30mm hole the crank uses). I cut four slots into the ali tube and splayed the resulting tabs apart. I pinch the splayed tabs to get them inside the nylon sleeve. I push down until the tube touches the nylon lip that retains the bearing (similar to the job the cir clips do). I've been beating the crap out of it, and it won't budge. I will adjust the home made tool a little as with hard blows, it springs back in and shoots out the other side. If I grind the face of the end of the seat post tool, I can get it to bite onto the nylon flange/lip instead of the pipe slipping on the flange (plenty of bearing grease and penetrating oil everywhere at the moment. Of course, that might just rip the entire flange/lip off the sleeve, but it will be one step closer to glory at least.

Wish me luck. My neighbours already know all the bad words. LOL

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TriDork

"Happiness is a myth. All you can hope for is to get laid once in a while, drunk once in a while and to eat chocolate every day"

I've never had an issue like that with PF30 cups. I've come across a few that were really tight, but since I'm generally not trying to save the cup and bearing, a large punch and mallet usually does the trick. If the inner sleeve connecting the bearing cups is gone, just hit at the base of the cup, but try not to gouge the BB shell.

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"I'm thinking of a number between 1 and 10, and I don't know why!"

I gave up on saving the cup after the first hour. It is well and truly munted now.

I am currently riding my sons bike as a daily commuter. It was my old commuter bike so all good. At least I can stay riding and not have to resort to taking the car.

This weekend I will carefully heat the PF bearing and cup. If that doesn't work, then the hacksaw will get a workout. I will take great care not to damage the BB Shell.

A Chris King PF bearing set, will go in. I'm also ordering the (yet another) special tool to grease the Chris King bearings. When they do go in, they will get installed in a sea of grease so I don't have to go through this crap ever again.

Thanks to all for the suggestions from the ever helpful Slowtwitch brains trust

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TriDork

"Happiness is a myth. All you can hope for is to get laid once in a while, drunk once in a while and to eat chocolate every day"

Further to my initial question, when I install the new bearings, what grease should I use?

I have a grease gun, currently shooting fairly thin white lithium grease that I use for most things. I also have some thicker flouro green grease, not sure of the spec or brand, but its' specifically bike grease. I only used it once, then switched to the white grease. I also have some brown axle grease that I use on the wheel bearings of my boat trailer. Given the horrible riding conditions here in Auckland, particularly riding on the waterfront in winter (lots of salt spray, beach sand and other crud) that a bearing grease for boat trailers might be the right stuff to use.

I know the bearings will already be greased, but I'm talking about slathering grease all around everything as I install things. I figure an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, and while Chris King makes great stuff, a few extra dollars of grease at installation time can only improve things?

Any suggestions greatly appreciated.

Also, as I'm getting the grease injection tool to go with the PF bearings, what sort of grease do people recommend for greasing the actual bearings?

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TriDork

"Happiness is a myth. All you can hope for is to get laid once in a while, drunk once in a while and to eat chocolate every day"

Praxis and wheelsmfg thread together BBs are what I use to avoid all that violence. Also more confident of alignment

Wheels Mfg are out of stock of their one! Faaaaaarrrrrkkkkkk!

BTW, is the 16 tooth tool they mention, the same as the old notched external BB bearings (Shimano?) tool

Now I'm looking at Chris King instead. Way more $, but hopefully solves my problems.

I'll look into Praxis tho.

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TriDork

"Happiness is a myth. All you can hope for is to get laid once in a while, drunk once in a while and to eat chocolate every day"

No, that would be too easy. It's a bit larger diameter

Praxis only useful if you're converting PF30 to shimano or SRAM cranks - no help if you need a 30mm spindle to go through.
Given the price difference to CK you could get Praxis and a Shimano crankset and come out about even!

Bugger (re the different tool) (at least the Wheels Mfg tool is only $18 USD which is offensively cheap given the normal over inflated price of bike tools.

I think I'll just stick with Chris King and be done with it.

Paying $USD for Chris King stuff means the Fiji holiday will go on hold, but at least I'll have nice bike parts :-)

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TriDork

"Happiness is a myth. All you can hope for is to get laid once in a while, drunk once in a while and to eat chocolate every day"

The thing about the CK PF30 BB that I couldn't understand was that with all the other attention to detail they end up using those plastic spacers between the crank spindle and inner bearing races?!? My other experience with CK stuff is that while the regreasable, proprietary bearings sound great, being able to toss old sealed bearings and replace with new ones off the shelf is pretty handy.

As for installation grease, this stuff recommended by Kogel is supposed to be just the thing for wet environments if you can find it: See Aquaproof Paste here. I've been using it for sealing around the BB and the liner sleeve, etc.

Are you saying that the CK bearings in their unit aren't replaceable? or standard?

I haven't looked at their PF in detail (just one picture on their website as far as I could tell). It does look like there's a plastic part of some sort to bush the inner bearing down to 30mm diameter. Clearly, that means the inner diameter of the bearing has to be larger than 30mm (34mm as a guess)

The diameter of the outer sleeve obviously has to match the 46mm diameter of the PF BB30 standard, but it's unclear what the inside diameter of that, and the outer diameter of the bearing are. Does anyone know if the CK bearing is a standard of some sort or whether it truly is completely proprietary? I'd much prefer to have at least the bearing be replaceable, preferably from my LBS since shipping from USA to NZ seems to take ages. I know they are warranted from CK for 5 years, but in my experience (especially in a different country) a warranty an $4 will get you a cup of coffee.

With all the trouble I'm currently having, removing a nylon cup from a ali BB shell, after just 2 years, I can't imagine how much difficulty I'm gunna have getting a CK ali cup out of an ali shell.

Mother of all that's holy, this is incredibly frustrating. Seems like everyone involved with the PF BB30 standard spent all 3 days at Woodstock!

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TriDork

"Happiness is a myth. All you can hope for is to get laid once in a while, drunk once in a while and to eat chocolate every day"

found a source for Wheel Mfg threaded PF BB30's

I also asked Chris King several questions about their PF 30BB's but have yet to hear back from them.

I'll report what I hear.

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TriDork

"Happiness is a myth. All you can hope for is to get laid once in a while, drunk once in a while and to eat chocolate every day"

CK produces their own bearings. I have not serviced one of their BB's, but reviewing their manual online they look to follow the same process with BB bearings that they do with their hubs. Proprietary bearings with seals that are designed for removal, bearing cleaning, bearing greasing and seal reinstallation. In the case of the BB they make the grease injection tool you mentioned previously. So if the bearings are reasonably clean they can just be regreased, but if they are gritty they need to be opened and serviced. Nothing wrong with this approach if the customer is ok with it.

I assume the CK bearings in the BB can be pressed out and replaced...with CK replacement bearings if they are available.

If you go the Wheels Mfg direction the wrench they use is the Park BBT-29 and is easy to find.

I got the wheels mfg BBright BB and I really appreciate that it threads into itself to create a tight and wiggle-free fit.

The BB does require a larger tool than the standard Shimano Hollowtech BB tool. The few shops that I spoke with had no clue what was needed.

Fortunately, as you have seen, Park Tools does sell the BBT-29 that works perfectly for the job. At first, I thought I might need two tools (one for either side), but in practice, only one tool was needed

get the wheels mfg. they're really quite great

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---------------------------------------
Fruit snacks are for winners

on the WM threaded pf30, can you replace the bearings with other bearings? just curious. will this put an end to the cervelo creaking/popping? :)

Whoa. Whoa. Whoa. No heat, no air, none of that.

PressFit BBs are a designed interference fit, as you mentioned. Sometimes if you get lucky you can use the Park BBT 30.3, which it sound like you have.

Typically you will need to use the rocket ship (Park BBT 90.3) to do the job. As it's an interference fit & you typically don't use grease when installing press-fit cups, you've got to whack that thing out with much more force than you'd expect.

Make sure the prongs of the tool are lined up with the cup shell and not eating into your BB shell. It helps to have the bike on the ground or at least braced against your legs. Use a big hammer.

You'll destroy the bearings and the shell, but it will come out just fine.

I empathize with your pain. I did a similar BB service/swap on a new S5 frame recently. Sorry if the following is too much information, but hopefully it will help you, or someone in the future. It would have helped me.

I started with the BBT-30.3 in a stand for removal. No way.


So I moved to the ground, braced the backside as near the BB as I could, and got a bigger hammer. I got too scared to use the heatgun pictured. I was terrified enough as it was hammering on my new, unridden frame.


At one point I called the LBS from whom I purchased the bike to ask how they removed these things. Answer: two people and some mighty blows. They'd never seen nor heard of damage to the frame with the hammering technique, except when someone missed the tool and hammered straight on the frame :/

After some properly terrifying blows, the cup came out.


I flipped and repeated. Ugh, horrible process. I replaced with a Wheels Mfg BBright -> SRAM GXP self-threading BB with angular bearings.


For installation, I used a combination of threaded rod, washers and drifts from the BBT-30.3. Wheels Mfg recommended 100% PTFE (teflon) as lubrication for installation in a carbon BB. That's the Finish Line product in the syringe.


Pressing in the non-drive side was difficult in that it kept wanting to go in crooked. I had to move the washer around the circumference of the BB, press in a little, move, press, etc, to get it in straight. It took me awhile to find this method.


The drive side then threads into the non-drive side that was just pressed in. So nice. Park Tool BBT-29 is the properly sized tool for this. As someone said before, it is definitely NOT the same as the Shimano spec. I have that tool too (BBT-9) and it doesn't work.



Pop in the crankset; done! Right?


Nope. The very end of the installation instructions say that if, after tightening the crank in, the wave washer is not compressed by at least 75%, uninstall the whole mess, add a shim to the NON-DRIVE side, and re-install. My wave washer was not 75% compressed. After thinking this whole mess was behind me, I was pretty much devastated.


The BB came with shims. Measuring as best I could, I figured I needed the 2.5mm shim.


Threaded drive side came off as nicely as it went on.


The first removal was so bad, I just refused to repeat that same awful hammering process. Especially on my nice new BB. So I made my own tool to press it out nicely. It took less than an hour, and my hammer stayed put away. The only thing that may not be super obvious in the photos below is that the hole in the wood piece is larger than the outside diameter of the BB, so when pressed out, the BB falls into there.













I put the shim on the non-drive side and pressed it back in, using the same technique as the first time.


Screw the drive-side in, pop the crank back on and done. For real this time.


damen

Damn that is a nice workaround. I purchased the Enduro BB30 Puller/Press Tool which makes quick work of the job and affords the option to remove either the bearings or the whole press fit cup in a serviceable condition. Prior to purchasing the Enduro tool, I resorted to using a Park Tool BBT-90.3 by reforming the fingers of the tool, but it should be noted this is a one time process as it will definitely leave the press fit cups in an un-serviceable condition.

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¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Thanks for posting that. Better instructions than on the Wheels MFG website, for sure!

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No coasting in running and no crying in baseball

I built my own version of that bearing removal tool, from a 27.2 mm dia seatpost.

As for the suggestions about wailing away with a hammer, I've done that, for several hours. As for supporting the bike on the floor, done that too.

current bearing and cup are fully shagged at the moment. I think a hacksaw (jigsaw) will be used on the weekend, then a Wheels Mfg threaded system will go in.

Is it preferred to have the standard bearing or the tapered version?

I like the suggestion of Teflon tape

FWIW my frame is carbon, but has an ali BB sleeve.

I have a Park tool threaded rod bearing press, but I'm thinking that getting my own threaded rod, slightly smaller than the 30mm internal diameter of the bearing, and a washer to suit the outer diameter of the bearing might be a better solution for pressing the bearings home, keeping the alignment better?

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TriDork

"Happiness is a myth. All you can hope for is to get laid once in a while, drunk once in a while and to eat chocolate every day"

Haven't had to try yet. They have replacement bearing kits for their BBs so it seems highly likely that you could replace with anything of same spec. Spins beautifully though so I haven't seen a need (I was originally considering using the WM to house higher grade bearings).

It has put an end to the noises for me, which is why I was excited when I could finally get the WM as I'd been waiting for a sensibly priced, thread together BBright solution that didn't require a reducer shim for SRAM - uses the correct stepped bearing. Most of my noise issues have come from the silly Ally shims to reduce 24mm to 22.