Originally Posted by
cyclist2000
1. I would never ride a bike that was short a few ball bearings in the bottom bracket especially if I were planning on using the bottom bracket again.
Are you sure you never have? Virtually all the loose ball bottom brackets I've disassembled used bearing retainers with 8 or 9 balls per side. I did not reinstall the retainers and replaced with 11 balls per side.
http://www.sheldonbrown.com/tooltips/bbadj.html Scroll down to "use loose balls."
Does anyone else get my point?