Hey guys, its been awhile since I've posted in here but I'm hoping you can help me out. I have a 26" Schwinn Sidewinder that I paid about $150 for at Walmart. Im used to cheap $100 bikes, running them into the ground and replacing every 2 yrs but this one seems much better than my others. Anyway, I had some play in the pedals, clicky noises, etc so I knew it was time to service the bottom bracket. Schwinn sent me new caged ball barrings, cups and a lock ring. I had plenty of blue park took grease on hand too and most of the needed tools since Ive serviced bottom brackets on my other bikes, just not this one. So I took it apart, cleaned it all out, dried it, lubed it up and everything seemed great. I went to ride my bike about an hour later and there was tons of play with the spindle. I was pretty shocked since everything seemed to be tight and go well with the servicing. So I took it home, took off the non chain ring side crank again, and thought maybe i just didnt tighten the cup enough so I took it off, reset it and retightend it as much as i could , put the lock ring back on and all felt very tight, no play with the spindle and so i thought all was well. this morning i went to ride my bike to work and again tons of play as soon as i started biking. Like if i pull and push on the crank arm i see the spindle wobble all over but the cup and lock ring looks fine. any idea what it could be? im starting to wonder if i put the spindle in backwards and if so could this cause a problem like this? I thought the slightly longer end of the spindle goes on the chain ring side and that's how im almost sure I put it. any advice would be greatly appreciated. thanks

Since you mention a spindle and removing crank arms, I'm assuming we're talking about an adjustable square taper bottom bracket -- fixed cup on the drive side; adjustable cup and lockring on the non-drive side.

If the spindle is loose relative to the bottom bracket cups and you're sure the fixed cup is tightly in place, it sounds like the adjustable cup & lockring aren't set properly. Either they're backing off or you didn't get things seated quite right when tightening them into place.

If you have an asymmetric spindle, putting it in backward wouldn't do any harm except that your chainrings would be a little further inboard or outboard than ideal. Spindle orientation wouldn't have any bearing (no pun intended) on whether your bottom bracket comes loose.

caged bearing in backwards?

Most of us just use loose balls and enough grease to hold them in place for assembly.

I have loose ones but since it was under warrantee in just had schwinn send me new caged ones and new cups and lock ring free. I'm going to take it apart for the third time and see if it's the caged barring position or what. I really feel like I set the cup in right. Also to respond to the first post, I don't think it's fixed on the chain ring side the cup comes out over there too and the spindle comes out on its own. I can fix my own scooter and have done this before to bikes so I'm annoyed with myself that I'm having this issue lol

Sounds to me like you got the wrong parts for the job. If it's a Wal-mart Schwinn, chances are it uses different (cheaper) parts than 'bike store Schwinns' use. Do you still have the old bearings? Measure them on a micrometer. Measure the cups, as well.

BTW, it's because of issues like this that any competent bike mechanic would replace the ENTIRE bottom bracket, rather than doing a piecemeal repair. If the bearings were actually worn enough to need replacement, so was the spindle. Good bottom brackets rarely fail like you mention. I do probably 10 bottom bracket re-lubes for every replacement. But then, I'm not riding a junk bike.....

You know, it's been a while since I've lowered myself to work on the type of bike that has caged bearings, but I remember that people were ALWAYS putting them in backwards. The cage sits AWAY from the spindle race; if you put it in the other way, you'll end up with a loose bottom bracket, and likely a couple farked-up cups, too.

I'd bet it is the cages in backward too - had a similar problem with a headset; found that I put the caged balls in the wrong way.

It might be worth the $20- to change to a cartridge BB like a Shimano UN26.

Thanks guys. I'm really thinking maybe I put the cage ring in backwards. It has a flat side and has a side you can see all of the balls better do the balls go towards the crank arm or do the balls go towards the inside of the bike? Sorry if I'm not making sense I just got off a 12 hour shift and I'm super tired. I actually have a better bike but I save her for joy riding when it's not going to rain and will never lock her up anywhere or put her on the front of busses where other people bang their bikes into yours putting them on. I bike and bus so i use and abuse a cheapie bike as my main one. I tossed the old rings and cups but they did look identical.

PS... I dropped it off at the bike shop on the way to work (the one i bought my better bike from) this morning around 7 a.m. and called them with the lock combination when they opened at 10am and they told me it would be $60 and they would try to look at it by the end of tomorrow. I really thought they would have time with it being there all day today. I was like nevermind I will pick it up on my way home from work. LOL. I called schwinn today and they are sending me a new spindle, crank set and chain ring incase I need it so that's good (and free)

You might get the gist that we don't prefer to use the cages.
There may be an underlying reason. (we have trouble keeping it straight too)
It always seems to be kind of backwards to me.

Ya you guys haven't been the first to tell me caged ones suck so I bought loose ones awhile back. Not sure what size but I have calipers to measure in the bottom of my tool kit. I just misplaced them so got caged under warranty then found them after.

Not a crime to use caged bearings but there are reasons not to.
If you do use them then make sure that they are oriented so that the bearings - not the cage - are in unobstructed contact with the bearing surfaces on the spindle.

They "should" be 1/4". It "should" take 11 per side.

1/4" is also the typical rear wheel bearing size.

If you spin the axle by hand before installing, backwards bearings should be obviously rough, grating etc...

Btw, high quality components have used caged bearings. They don't always signify low end parts.

This thread has me questioning things I thought I understood. I'm not advocating for caged bearings, but a couple of the posts here seem to be saying that they should be oriented in a way that I thought was wrong. Maybe I'm just misunderstanding. I'm a visual person, so I'm going to use a picture to try to clear up my understanding one way or another.

The bottom brackets I've had that used caged bearings came with bearings that look like this:



Now, if I install the bearings with the side shown on the right/rear of this picture facing toward the center of the spindle the spindle race will rest against the balls exposed on the inside of the cage and the cup race will contact the balls on the side shown in the left/front of the picture. If I install them the opposite way, the cage and not the balls will rest against the cup.

But it sounds like a couple of the posts above are saying this is wrong. Am I just misreading those posts?

The rear picture is axle race facing.
The front picture is cup race facing.

With loose parts in hand, before greasing, it will be quite obvious.
Smooth, free spinning, vs rough, grating, scraping.

That's what I thought, and I was pretty sure the last time I did it that it was clear to me that I couldn't have done it otherwise, but I was confused by [MENTION=432773]AlexCyclistRoch[/MENTION]'s comment "The cage sits AWAY from the spindle race" and [MENTION=47040]JanMM[/MENTION]'s "If you do use them then make sure that they are oriented so that the bearings - not the cage - are in unobstructed contact with the bearing surfaces on the spindle. "

I thought I must have been misunderstanding those statements, but I learn a lot from other contributors on this forum so I thought it was worth asking. Thanks for the clarification.

9-ball retainers such as pictured above will install with the ring side of the retainer on the inside. 11-ball retainers install the other way around:

It the front picture is cup race facing then I put them in upside down. Thanks for the photos and explanations. That helped.I think I have the 9 ball. I swear I have always put them in that way and never had a problem though. I'm having one of those " I have nothing left to give " evenings with energy drained so I'm going to try to work on it in the morning before work. I think next time I'm going for the loose barings. Thanks for your help guys. I'll let you know how it turns out

OK, that would account for the disconnect between my understanding and the earlier comments. What AlexCyclistRoch and JanMM said makes perfect sense with this image. Thanks!

Did you have to "lower yourself" to respond to the thread? Hope it wasn't to painful for you...

...I would do this too.

With loose bearings or a cartridge BB the you miss the opportunity to scratch your head trying to figure out which way to place the caged balls.
My current bikes all have external bearing cranksets but there are always other opportunities for puzzled head-scratching.

.
...some of the low budget Chinese bikes have a BB unit installed at the factory that is virtually impossible to service and readjust correctly. I found this out working at the bike co-op here, when some of them ended up there ridden by homeless guys and donated (as soon as the BB gives up, which is pretty soon if ridden regularly). I think it's called a semi-sealed unit, mixes the worst of both worlds, and is way better replaced with something like a Shimano or other cartridge.

Don't know if that's what you have, but you're buying bikes in that range of the marketplace.

If you straddle the bike to ride it and look down with your x-ray vision super powers, you should be able to read the engraving on the spindle as it will be right side up. If the engraving is upside-down, you put the spindle in the wrong way.