Originally Posted by
old's'cool
I can't disagree with that philosophy. It should be stated, however, that the replacement balls should be of equivalent quality to the retired ones. I'd rather keep using good balls with life left in them than new ones of questionable quality. And, speaking for myself here (don't do this at home kids
), if my assessment of a particular bearing assembly (based on the known or presumed history of the bike, as well as absence of any negative visual indicators with the bearings in the teardown and inspection process) is that it is early in life and gently used, I have no problem returning the balls to service for another innings.
+1000!
I was going to write a snarky response about how it may be true that you can't tell by looking at bearings if they are still good, you also can't tell if they are shot by reading about them on a forum.
I didn't have the right size in my bin to replace the old bearings and didn't feel like going to the shop for something as trivial as a few new balls. AND when I put it all back together it spins like NEW.