I bought a Schwinn Le Tour today for the princely sum of $20.00. It has Suntour components on it and except for twenty years of crud and neglect, it seems to be in okay shape. I took apart the bottom bracket and it has the old style no cage bearings that sit in a bed of grease, Well they are supposed to at least. Mine are now. The question I have is when I removed the bottom bracket there was a plastic thing in the BB tube. What is the function of this thing and is it really necessary. I reassembled everything sans plactic duhicky and everything seems to work fine. So whats the inside skinny**********?

Thanks

Jim

If it make any difference this is a made in Japan product. I believe it to be mid seventies vintage.