thenomad

It looks like the BB I have is 107mm and I have a spare Shimano cartridge in the garage sized 110mm.

A) Since it is only 3mm larger would it really make that much of a difference? Then again, I suppose greasing and using the cup and ball would save me some weight right?

B) I've also read that it may be worth it to remove the balls from the little carriers they come in to improve a BB. Anyone agree?

operator

The 110 is the same chainline as the 107. Left side difference only. Cartridge bb's do not have "carriers" for the bearings, you can't even service the unit.

thenomad

I meant the cup and ball older BB I have if I used it.

johnknappcc

Yes, Yes, Yes!!! I overhauled my loose bearing BB a few weeks ago, followed all the directions, and replaced the 9 bearings in each cage. I noticed that I was still getting some grinding, so I took it all apart, and found that one of the races was bent. I unbent and put in back in, and things were better.

Then, I checked with BF, and everyone said add two, remove cages, and it would be better (same thing SB said). Wow, what a crazy difference. Seriously, huge.

It was pretty simple, lay the bike on the side with the fixed cup down, add a lot of grease to the fixed cup, and then I used a needle nose pliers to place each bearing in place, I did the same thing with the adjustable cup, putting the grease, bearings, and then used the spindle to keep them in place.

Then just threaded the spindle/adjustable back on while making sure no bearings fell out using my finger in the hole of the fixed cup to keep everything in place.

The whole overhaul took about 15 minutes, and what a huge difference, even the lockring/adjustable cup adjustments were easier and more exact.

Most likely you would need 11 1/4" bearings without the cages. Throw them away, and never look back.

operator

The correct way is full race -1. That maybe 11 sometimes it's 10.

thenomad

Cool, I'll go ahead and do that.


Where are you buying your spindles if they are galled? I don;t see many places selling them.

johnknappcc

I'm not sure you could find them, unless NOS. However, spindles are most likely fine, your cups would probably wear out faster. My spindle is cro-mo, and didn't have a pit or anything . . .



I have no idea what operator is talking about, it might take less than 11, but my cages kept the bearings so far apart (you can see in the picture) that you needed 11 to fill up the space. You should have half a bearing space left in between the bearings, just keep adding the bearings until you get to that point. More info here . . . https://www.sheldonbrown.com/tooltips/bbadj.html especially the section entitled "Use Loose Balls". If I had put 8 bearings in each cup it wouldn't have worked out so well.

Also, and I'm sure this shouldn't be a problem, but make sure they get the bearings from the same run/production, because the tolerences are very good. Don't try to use bearings from mis-matched runs or reuse any of the existing ones. I always get 6 or so extra just in case I drop any, and just throw out the leftovers after.