Shimano BB Tool Woes
 

I wore out the Ultegra 6700 bottom bracket on my Habanero, so I bought a new generation Shimano BB. This is your typical threaded BB, not press fit.

When I got home and tried to install the BB with my tool, I was surprised to see the diameter of the newer generation BB was a little bit smaller and did not fit my BB tool. I just tightened it as best I could with a pair of channel locks, but went ahead and bought the adapter, Shimano TLFC24, which is a plastic ring that allegedly will engage the tool on the outside of the ring and engage the BB on the inner part of the ring.

I swapped out my crankset the other day and tried to adjust/tighten the BB using the ring adapter. For the life of me, I could NOT get the inner ring to engage the BB notches. The outer ring fits the tool fine, but the inner ring would NOT engage. No way. I tried both sides and spun it around for several minutes.

So I said screw it, just leave it as is.

Of course, now my BB has developed a stupid creaking and I think I need to regrease it and/or torque it to stop the problem.

Any suggestions? I am willing to buy a new tool if I am confident it will fit/engage the BB.

I think I may have the answer.

The BB I have is SMBBR60, it did NOT come with the adapter tool. I bought a TL-FC24 adapter ring which I thought would work, but apparently I need the TL-FC25 adapter ring.

Sigh,

Shimano is very well known for changing various specs as they see fit. Many times these changes don't seem to directly effect the functional ones the marketing blabs about. Tool fit is but one example of this. Andy

Yeah, there are not one but two new Shimano BB tool interfaces. Just to keep things interesting.

It's bad enough they took a standard that worked fine, but to make two NEW standards seems pretty stupid to me.

I suppose it's my own fault, I bought the BB online and it did not include the adapter, so I bought what I thought was the right adapter and of course it's the wrong one.

Another life lesson.

The dual adapter from Birzman is a very nice tool...

http://www.birzman.com/products_2.php?uID=2&cID=28&Key=127