I thought this video may help someone on the vintage forum some day. How To Remove A Stuck Fixed Cup From Bike Bottom Bracket - YouTube

First of all it is called a fixed cup for a reason and therefore supposed to be installed tightly and not removed for routine cleaning.

If you have the correct tools BB spanner with a 1-2 foot cheater extension and Stein fixed cup clamp or home made equivalent you should be able to loosen the fixed cup before completely removing the spindle and adjustable cup from the frame.

IMHO that method should only be a last ditch effort.

Works most of the time, but not all the time.

But don't buy the cheap grade 2 bolts, which have a plain head. Get grade 5 or 8, 3 or 5 radial markings on the head. I have sheared grade 2 bolts and I am almost a geezer.

Actually, on fixed cups with two flats that fit the Park HCW-4, just fasten the tool to the BB with a bolt, large washers, and a nut. A few blows to the wrench and it will free it right up. This takes care of 90% of the situations.

This method, which is inexpensive to implement, has never failed me...

All excellent and effective methods. Once in a long while, you might come across a cup that simply won't succumb to the 'proper' approach and have to be more brutal. This steel cup simply wouldn't budge from an aluminium Raleigh frame - I believe it wasn't greased on initial assembly and galvanic corrosion occurred when the bike had been left in wet, salty, marine conditions. Anyhow, the BB was totally shot including the fixed cup so I eventually decided to sacrifice the cup.


Having removed the adjustable cup, axle and bearings,three deep cuts across the face of the cup with the edge of an angle grinder blade (being careful not to touch the BB shell faces of the frame) produced these six deep grooves. A sharp cold chisel engaged in the groove that was horizontal given three or four sharp taps with a club hammer got it turning until the next groove was in position. I repeated the process until about four threads were clear of the BB shell, then used the pictured 18" long pipe wrench to wind it all of the way out. It was stiff until the very end. Result - cup removed and discarded, threads and frame undamaged. A slap of grease on the threads and the new BB screwed straight in.

If this hadn't worked I might have cut a section out of the BB cup and tried to remove the pieces. I believe the heat of the cutting operation may have helped, so maybe this is another approach - but I didn't want to apply direct heat from a hot air *** or butane torch for fear of paint damage.

hi,yeah i had a bit of trouble with a sealed bb , i didnt have many wrenches to hand so i took it to a local tyre bay
1/2" drive air impact tool.good man didnt charge me anything.

Here's a video of an even better method that doesn't require a trip to the hardware store and also does not mar the surface of the cup: How To Remove A Stuck Bottom Bracket Fixed Cup - Another Method - YouTube

https://www.bikeforums.net/bicycle-me...l#post11769729

Of course every C+V enthusiast has a wooden mallet like the one in the video! I gave my croquet set away a while ago.

Of course when you talk about hammer time...............

My daughter has a '97 Bianchi Eros where both cups are frozen. If someone knows how to remove those I would really be interested.

Isn't everything frozen in MSP right now?

Copious amounts of penetrant, time, maybe some heat and some vibration.

We are having a heat wave. It shot up to 18 degrees today.

How very interesting. I have a '98 Bianchi Eros (last year w/lugs & steel fork, w/squished tubes) with both cups stuck. Who'd a thunk it? I know this is a small sample universe, but do all the late-'90s Eros bb cups get stuck?

I don't have a bench vise, so when my Kroil soaking and hand tools didn't work, I took it to the LBS. They soaked 'em for a while, then trashed a Park bb tool. Then they tried using a Campy socket tool in a bench vise, using the whole frame for leverage. Which also didn't work. So we're thinking heat is the next resort. The paint is already pretty crappy, so it might be a good experiment for Groody Bros powder coating. If the bb cups ever come out...

A colleague has left his Bianchi Euro out in the elements in a seafront house in Okinawa for several years (think typhoons, salt, and 100% humidity), and Yes, both his BB cups have corroded into the frame as well.

Must be a universal problem.

...I help a lot of people at the bike co-op with a similar situation.
If you can post some pictures of the BB on both sides (with the cranks removed), I can tell you how I'd do it.

...they should give everyone in the country a dead blow hammer when they get their first bicycle.

Thanks for the offer. It may be a while until I get over to her place but I am pretty sure it looks like this (rounded slots).

...then i also need to see what you're using for the wrench. I think there's a flat one and maybe a sort of cupped one, too for that design.

If it's the flat one, you get some large washers with a hole that will clear the crank spindle end, and use at least one big flat fender washer
to go up against the wrench to hold it in place, fill in the rest of the gap with the other washers (or you can make a spacer out of a small piece of pvc),
and then use your crank bolt and another combination of washers (stepped down in hole size) to hold the whole thing together.

The attachment should be tight enough to hold the wrench in place, even when you hit it with a hammer, but still a little loose so it has room to back out a turn.

I think I'd try the loose cup (the one that slides off the cartridge) first. Once that one is loose, you still have a spindle to attach to on the other side.


If the cups are aluminum alloy, I'd try degreasing and then trying to get some ammonia in there for a day or two (you can pour it in through the seat tube.)
Then apply some sort of penetrant oil, and attempt the procedure as described.

Bolting the cup wrench in place so you can hit it with a hammer seems to work like a primitive impact wrench.

Method is cheap, simple, easy.....has worked for me a number of times.....nice, detailed photo tells all!

Thanks for the tip 3alarmer. I can' t remember if I tried that method. I have used it on other stuck cups with success. I will have to give it a try.

https://www.bikeforums.net/classic-vi...technique.html

I had an old old Raleigh with this problem and my brother in law welded a piece of pipe onto the face of the cup and, when it cooled, I simply rotated the piece of pipe and, with a bit of effort, the cup came out. Obviously, this method is of a last resort as the cup cannot be used again. We got the idea from a video but I cannot find it right now.

So far I have never had a fixed cup I couldn't remove ( unlike some stems & seat posts ), most using a lot of the methods shown here but the one thing that has always always worked for me is heat. For aluminum frames a heat g-u-n works 99.9% of the time, you just need to heat evenly around the BB and most of the time if it doesn't come right out I will heat the cup on high then let it cool and repeat. I had some aluminum frames that were in super storm Sandy and left to sit and these methods worked every time for me.

Steel frames can be more of a challenge some times & a propane torch is my weapon of choice but care must be taken as not to ruin the paint. If the adjustable cup will come out I will clean the fixed cup as best as I can and heat the cup from the inside of the BB but not hot enough to damage the paint, then I will spray it with PB Blaster to cool it. It may take a few tries but in the end they have always come out for me. I have a few different propane torches and the ones I use have a good tight flame pattern which helps with problems burning the paint. I have also used the nut and bolt method with heat and used a 1/2" drive impact wrench for real stubborn cups.

Glenn

Not exactly a C&V bike, it was a big box bike actually, but no one's mentioned this yet so ... I took the big threaded rod I use for headsets, nuts and fender washer on both sides of the fixed cup, and cranked down on it with a big spanner and cheater bar. The reverse thread on the cup just tightened the nuts as I torqued it, so with enough force it was inevitable. No torches, welding, chemicals nor special tools required.