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Servicing Bottom Bracket
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svennn
May 16, 22 8:01
Post #1 of 11 (1326 views)
I did a cold, rainy, gravel event last week. I got home and washed everything down and pulled the chain off to clean it and wax it.

The next day I noticed the BB has a bunch of drag. With no chain it, will only turn about a half a rotation after giving it a pretty good flick of the wrist. I don't hear any grinding, it's just stiff.

It's less than a year old with no more than 2000 miles on it. It's a Rotor T47 with internal bearings. Over my years as a hack mechanic, I would just buy a new BB and install it and move on. My paperwork from Rotor says it has a 2 year warranty and I'd like to see if I can fix it.

Does anyone know if it possible to clean and repack the bearing on this BB? So far, I did that with the two rear jockey wheels. They were trashed and now nice and smooth.

As an aside, next time I'll skip the wet gravel race. It's been a nightmare of cleaning and I haven't even gotten to the headset yet.....

Thanks.
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Re: Servicing Bottom Bracket [svennn] [ In reply to ]
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trail
May 16, 22 8:09
Post #2 of 11 (1319 views)
svennn wrote:

Does anyone know if it possible to clean and repack the bearing on this BB?

They're cartridge bearings, so there's not going to be any repacking.

But you should be able to remove the cartridges, pull the seals out, clean them out with a degreaser, then re-grease them.
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Re: Servicing Bottom Bracket [trail] [ In reply to ]
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svennn
May 16, 22 13:20
Post #3 of 11 (1233 views)
trail wrote:
svennn wrote:


Does anyone know if it possible to clean and repack the bearing on this BB?


They're cartridge bearings, so there's not going to be any repacking.

But you should be able to remove the cartridges, pull the seals out, clean them out with a degreaser, then re-grease them.

Thanks, I'll pull the cranks when I get the time this week and see what it looks like.

I always knew "packing a bearing" from my car wrenching days as when you added grease to new bearings.
Quote Reply
Re: Servicing Bottom Bracket [svennn] [ In reply to ]
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trail
May 16, 22 13:26
Post #4 of 11 (1227 views)
svennn wrote:

I always knew "packing a bearing" from my car wrenching days as when you added grease to new bearings.


Good point. I've always thought of it as the process of arranging the little balls in an cup-and-cone style bearing and then enclosing them. But the term also seems to apply to any greasing-service performed on a bearing.
Last edited by: trail: May 16, 22 13:27
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Re: Servicing Bottom Bracket [svennn] [ In reply to ]
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xeon
May 17, 22 5:08
Post #5 of 11 (1120 views)
I'm unfamiliar with that specific BB but here's my suggestion. If you pull the cranks and you can see dust shields on both sides, pull them off, spray the bearing generously with wd40 to clean them. If you have an air compressor blow them out, then regrease them, 25% seems to be a good number from my experience... you can get a syringe of ceramicspeed grease(not crazy expensive and lasts for many bearing services) from Amazon.
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Re: Servicing Bottom Bracket [svennn] [ In reply to ]
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Fat Pelican
May 17, 22 6:37
Post #6 of 11 (1079 views)
If the bearings have rubber/plastic weather seals you can try removing those for cleaning, I've done that to most of the bearings on my wheels. If the bearings have steel outer seals I think you will end up needing a new bottom bracket.

I also use the WD-40 and air compressor method mentioned above, works great.
Last edited by: Fat Pelican: May 17, 22 6:38
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Re: Servicing Bottom Bracket [Fat Pelican] [ In reply to ]
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svennn
May 18, 22 5:54
Post #7 of 11 (979 views)
If anyone cares to know...

I pulled the cranks and it was the non drive side bearing that was bad. I opened the seal and it looks totally fine, just won't spin.

I cleaned it out and freed them up and repacked with Finish Line (it what I had on hand). I need to stop today and grab a 8mm hex socket so I can torque it down properly. It seems okay but I don't have much confidence in the long term durability at this point.

I decided to get a new BB to have on hand. That could be a whole new thread. How the f##k does a normal person figure out what BB to buy? My head is spinning just looking around online.

Thanks everyone.
Quote Reply
Re: Servicing Bottom Bracket [svennn] [ In reply to ]
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cgrubb
May 18, 22 6:33
Post #8 of 11 (968 views)
svennn wrote:
I did a cold, rainy, gravel event last week. I got home and washed everything down and pulled the chain off to clean it and wax it.

The next day I noticed the BB has a bunch of drag. With no chain it, will only turn about a half a rotation after giving it a pretty good flick of the wrist. I don't hear any grinding, it's just stiff.

It's less than a year old with no more than 2000 miles on it. It's a Rotor T47 with internal bearings. Over my years as a hack mechanic, I would just buy a new BB and install it and move on. My paperwork from Rotor says it has a 2 year warranty and I'd like to see if I can fix it.

Does anyone know if it possible to clean and repack the bearing on this BB? So far, I did that with the two rear jockey wheels. They were trashed and now nice and smooth.

As an aside, next time I'll skip the wet gravel race. It's been a nightmare of cleaning and I haven't even gotten to the headset yet.....

Thanks.

Why don't you contact Rotor directly and ask them about it. I have always ground to be very helpful.
Quote Reply
Re: Servicing Bottom Bracket [cgrubb] [ In reply to ]
Quote | Reply
svennn
May 18, 22 6:38
Post #9 of 11 (964 views)
cgrubb wrote:

Why don't you contact Rotor directly and ask them about it. I have always ground to be very helpful.

I did and they just told me it needs to be replaced. It's about what I expected. It is a consumable item and they are in the business of selling parts.

I have found ST to be one of the best sources of information on all things cycling. Once again that proved true.
Quote Reply
Re: Servicing Bottom Bracket [svennn] [ In reply to ]
Quote | Reply
jaretj
May 18, 22 10:09
Post #10 of 11 (918 views)
svennn wrote:
If anyone cares to know...

I pulled the cranks and it was the non drive side bearing that was bad. I opened the seal and it looks totally fine, just won't spin.

I cleaned it out and freed them up and repacked with Finish Line (it what I had on hand). I need to stop today and grab a 8mm hex socket so I can torque it down properly. It seems okay but I don't have much confidence in the long term durability at this point.

I decided to get a new BB to have on hand. That could be a whole new thread. How the f##k does a normal person figure out what BB to buy? My head is spinning just looking around online.

Thanks everyone.


This is what I do:
Identify the frame to get the bottom bracket standard used,
Identify the crank to get the bottom bracket spindle size.

If you have that info there are guides to get the correct one. Wheels Manufacturing has pretty good descriptions. Search for a bottom bracket that fits the frame then narrow that list to ones the work with the crank.

https://wheelsmfg.com/bb-standards

There are a few that will not work together like a BB30 on most anything that's not BB30 or Trek not working with anything other than (BSA60 (I think) um..nope) or BB90.
There are a cranks that work with most everything like BSA60 or BB386EVO.
Last edited by: jaretj: May 18, 22 10:27
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Re: Servicing Bottom Bracket [jaretj] [ In reply to ]
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jaretj
May 18, 22 10:28
Post #11 of 11 (907 views)
A decent description of Bottom Bracket standards

https://www.bikeradar.com/...m-bracket-standards/
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