fritz1255

I am doing some maintenance on a couple of bikes, including bottom bracket repacking. The bikes I have are older, maybe 80's & 90's. Most are "rescues" of some kind - yard sale or found on a junk pile in the woods. The bearing cups have a face that looks like the picture below - there are two indented slots that are apparently used to rotate it. This time, I used a hammer and screwdriver to do the initial loosening, but is there an actual tool? Would the Park HCW-11 tool do the job?

cyccommute 

Yes. You can also use a SPA-1 pin spanner.

The screw driver works as well. Usually, once you remove the lock ring, the cup should be removable by hand.

wschruba

That you say "indented" makes me think you are talking about the bearing cones for an American (Ashtabula) bottom bracket. If so, yes, there is a proper tool, no longer made, but it is mostly unnecessary. A large pin spanner will suffice, or a screwdriver, in a pinch.

Much more uncommon were the "3-piece" bottom brackets of that style.

cyccommute 

A lot of loose bearing English thread bottom brackets have those kind of indentations, especially the less expensive ones.

Andrew R Stewart 

Park has made two tools specific to these rectangular indented cups, both I believe are out of production. The first is the SPA-2


and the HCW-11


The SPA3 (often called the yellow spanner) was in common and actually very durable if somewhat flexy in use. The HCW11 was even less common (as a shop intended tool) and while easier to use would shear off the tabs easily. Andy.

wrk101

Big fan of the HCW-11. If you are going to routinely rescue and work on older bikes, IMO, you should invest in a variety of BB tools. I've never had the tabs shear off, I'll watch out for that. If they do, my experience with Park is they stand behind their tools 100%. I've had them replace some other tools, all it took was a picture attached to an email and a replacement was sent my way.

cyccommute 

The SPA-2 is out of production but not the HCW-11. It costs between $15 and $20.

chorlton

Me too. Top, HCW-11, for the cup. Bottom for the lock ring. If your target has been left in someone's garden for the last twenty years you may find things are stiff so you get to spend 24hrs applying releasing fluid, Plus Gas. In my case neither the tools or the cup/lock have suffered. Drive side cup needs a HCW-4 and the tool does suffer a bit...

..

fietsbob

Id put another BB in, after you drove that one out with hammer and cold chisel , at least the fixed cup, so you can thereafter just use the more common BB tools..

Shimano's fit and forget UN22, are cheap enough these days..

cyccommute 

That is without a doubt the worst bicycle tool ever! I replace loose bearing bottom brackets whenever possible with a sealed unit but for taking the fixed cup off, I built this tool from holding the HCW-4 in place

2015-03-14 11.21.32 by Stuart Black, on Flickr
2015-03-14 11.28.26 by Stuart Black, on Flickr
IMG_0817 by Stuart Black, on Flickr

We have since replaced the left side with a threaded cup. It's made from a long hub axle, a lock ring and two tops from two kickstands (editorial: it's the best...and only...thing kickstands are good for). This whole thing holds the HCW-4 in place better so that you can even pound on it with a hammer if needed.

chorlton

I hear what you are saying. I should knock similar together myself but for the moment I have found that holding the tool in place with the heel of my palm and hitting it with a big hammer gets the job done... Otherwise it may be a bad tool as a result of what it has to interface with.

Andrew R Stewart 

This through the shell tool clamp is what we did BITD before Stein came out with his wonderful FCC (fixed cup clamp). One of the earlier shops I worked at had a half inch carriage bolt about a foot long and a stack of varying sized washers on either side. Andy.