Originally Posted by
m_yates
I'd disagree with that. The cost of new ball bearings is so minimal, I wouldn't bother trying to re-use them. You have to take the ball bearings out anyways to remove the old grease.
That's true. They are cheap, even for good ones like Grade 25.
Originally Posted by
m_yates
Supposedly the bearings become oval shaped over time, so you'll have to re-adjust the hub after the old bearings settle into the orientation they had before you take them out. New bearings will assuredly be spherical shaped.
That's not true. The "tech guru" from Bicycling Magazine use to publish that myth about once a year until an engineer from one of the big bearing manufacturers (Timkin, IIRC) finally got tired of it and wrote to say it wasn't true. A couple of times I've reused bearing balls with several thousand miles on them and getting a good, stable bearing adjustment was just as easy as with new balls.