I'm tearing down a 1985 Nishiki Colorado that's been sitting in a barn for 20 years...it's got a fair bit of rust, but only surface stuff on the frame itself.

I removed the bottom bracket so I could measure the offset spindle properly and figure out what size of cartridge BB to replace it with. It seems to have some sort of pressed-in ring holding the balls captive in the cup, rather than loose or with a std. retaining ring. I cleaned it up and found the words "Hatta" and "Pre-Lube" on the pressed-in ring. I can't see a good way to pop out the ring without mangling it, so I can replace the balls. I also can't tell what the internal condition of the cups is...the spindle seems alright.

A very small amount of research seems to indicate that Hatta was/is a good brand of bearings and bottom brackets, though I'm not seeing anything special about this BB aside from the design of the cups. Is this something special that I should try to preserve and re-use, or should I just chuck it and put in a cartridge?

IIRC those were pretty nice BBs but yes hard to service. If it was running decently smooth before the overhaul I would suggest cleanignit as best you can and then shove as much new grease in as you can.

That retaining ring was a neat ide but yes tough to get out and reuse.

It was grumbly, but probably just because the grease was dried-out...I don't think this bike has seen a lot of actual road mileage. I'll soak it in some solvent overnight and scrub it up as best I can, and try a test reinstall to see how it does.

Thank you.

Am I crazy or that John Wayne in a Divo hat?

Energy dome, and Yes, it is.

Hatta PRE Lube Bottom Bracket English Threads Japan | eBay

Yeah, that's it...mine isn't in nearly as good of shape. Thank you.

That's very odd. Considering the age of the BB, I bet it's just ordinary retainers stuck in dried-up grease. Soak it in solvent for an hour or two and see what pops loose.

Serviceability didn't seem to be a concern of the designer, though to their credit it does have a full complement of 11 balls per cup, while remaining simple to install at the factory.

With my Nishiki Seral's Hatta cartridge bottom bracket, the same problem, i.e. serviceability is very poor, because one can only secure the cups with a pin tool! There are no flats, spines or hooks for a proper spanner of any kind.

I know that even using two pin tools to engage four of the holes in each cup, I still wasn't able to secure the cups with a proper amount of torque, only a fancy 6-pin factory tool would accomplish that in all likelihood.

But, new Japanese bikes were somewhat notorious for having the fixed cup become loose within the first few hundred miles, so I guess only very light pedaling was expected(?). Grrrr.

This is what it looks like:



It's not an awesome photo, but it clearly shows how it goes together. There's a lot of pics of new Hatta cups out there that look just like that, except for being brown. I initially thought it was a lip cast into the cup that was crimped down to hold in the balls, but after cleaning you could see it was instead a pressed-in ring, as well as the additional writing on the ring. There's nothing on the outside of the cup to indicate brand, and the spindle was unmarked.

I'm going to clean the whole thing up real good, regrease it, and reinstall it, just to gauge how smooth the races are. The spindle looks good, and I think the bike is low-miles, just high-rust, so the cups should probably be as good.

Since I have bags of new Grade25 ball bearings on hand, I would pry out that retaining ring and replace those rusted balls, then use grease to hold them in.

Hoping your spindle and cups weren't the first parts to rust, but it sure looks like something did rust there, so might need some attention for longer-term usage imo.

+1 My first thought was to pry out those pressed in caps and install new balls.

I pried out the rings last night, and had a look at the cups...the drive side is pretty bad. A cartridge it is, then.