Switching to sealed Bottom Bracket bearings.
04-28-10, 11:53 PM
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Switching to sealed Bottom Bracket bearings.
I have 3 bikes down with broken bottom brackets. For one, I have obtained a titanium spindle that needs sealed bearings. Will the bearings sit in the cups?
How will the spindle and bearings remain in place to keep from moving side to side?
Or do I remove the cups?
How will the spindle and bearings remain in place to keep from moving side to side?
Or do I remove the cups?
04-29-10, 03:32 AM
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Sealed bearings can mean several different things. Some use it for what's actually cartridge bearings, which (in bicycle dimensions) usually are sealed from the beginning. Others use "sealed bearing" to describe what's basically a normal cup & cone, loose or caged balls bearing that has some extra feature apart from the axle being a rather tight fit through whatever surface its penetrating.
Post a pic and it'll be easier to answer.
Post a pic and it'll be easier to answer.
04-29-10, 06:18 AM
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I agree a pic is worth several thousand words here.
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04-29-10, 08:28 AM
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Back in the day our ti spindles were of a constant dia. and were held fast with a set screw in a collar that slipped over the spindle, etc., etc. Can't remember the name of the manufacturer, it was in the early 80's.
04-30-10, 01:35 AM
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Sealed bearings can mean several different things. Some use it for what's actually cartridge bearings, which (in bicycle dimensions) usually are sealed from the beginning. Others use "sealed bearing" to describe what's basically a normal cup & cone, loose or caged balls bearing that has some extra feature apart from the axle being a rather tight fit through whatever surface its penetrating.
Post a pic and it'll be easier to answer.
Post a pic and it'll be easier to answer.
At any rate it is not a cartridge BB.
Sounds like mkane77g has explaned the spindle I have.
04-30-10, 08:01 AM
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No, the proper bearings are not going to work with the cups you have, assuming you have loose ball BB's in there now. If that's the case, rather than cobbling something together with your new spindle it'll be easier to buy new full cartridge BBs, eg Shimano UN-xx style.
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05-04-10, 04:35 AM
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All three had loose BBs (the Super Grand Prix had the bearings removed, the Bridgestone has had the cups & now polyhedron bearings removed at this point).
I had a problem with missing parts on a Uni BB I ordered. Two of the 3 bikes are Raleighs (78 Super Grand Prix and 87 Technium) so I likely have thread incompatibility problem. The preference was to put the titanium spindle on the Technium as I am a little more weight concious on the lighter bike and also hope the Ti spindle would be more durable. I hoped the spindle would be compatible with Raleigh BBs.
05-04-10, 08:25 AM
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05-04-10, 09:22 AM
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IIRC there were significant breakage problems with these early Ti spindles. Even today with the vastly better Ti alloys and processing conditions, Ti spindles and pedal axles have a rider weight limit.
05-04-10, 12:45 PM
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Yes, there were. Only Stronglight seemed to compensate for this by making the spindle much thicker than a standard spindle, but that meant they needed to use cartridge bearings which weren't all that well accepted in bikes at the time. Although Zeus used loose balls on their Ti bottom bracket, they used cartridge bearings on their Ti pedals. Go figure.
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