Geraint Jones
Executive summary: are the fancy bellows-shaped tubes in bottom brackets meant to be disposable?
Rambling anecdote: For years I have been vaguely dubious of those wise old owls who will tell you
that the first thing you with a new bike is to disassemble it and grease all the bearings. I mean,
nobody's going to start with taking a bottom bracket apart, are they?
So the XYL's bottom bracket was making a strange rubbery squeaking noise. Well, her bike's bottom
bracket was. Since it seems to have rubber seals between the spindle (or if you prefer, axle) and
the edges of the cups I wondered whether there was something fishy in there.
When we disassembled it, there was indeed. There was enough water to float a small shoal of fish,
and what is worse a considerable amount of rust and very little sign of its ever having been
lubricated with anything other than perhaps a bit of graphite. I am in danger of becoming one of
those cranky old codgers who will tell you that the first thing you with a new bike is to
disassemble it and grease all the bearings, including the bottom bracket.
But all of this is only by way of explaining that when we took the adjustable cup off the bottom
bracket, and drained out the water, what we found next was "one of the special plastic sleeves" (as
described by the Great Sheldon in <http://www.sheldonbrown.com/tooltips/bbadj.html> (http://www.sheldonbrown.com/tooltips/bbadj.html)).
I had previously only come across the idea of cutting a piece out of a squeezy(TM) bottle for this
purpose, and never in fact seen even one of those, but the item in question was a purpose-built
cylindrical white plastic bellows, and getting it out of the bottom bracket shell without tearing it
apart seemed to be all but impossible.
Do the manufacturers of white plastic bellows make a special plastic puller to remove them, or are
they meant to be disposed of and replace with a new one? (We stuffed it back in, despite its being
slightly wonky, and of course it is designed to go in much more easily than it comes out.) Is there
a knack? Is it all in the wrist action, champ?
Rambling anecdote: For years I have been vaguely dubious of those wise old owls who will tell you
that the first thing you with a new bike is to disassemble it and grease all the bearings. I mean,
nobody's going to start with taking a bottom bracket apart, are they?
So the XYL's bottom bracket was making a strange rubbery squeaking noise. Well, her bike's bottom
bracket was. Since it seems to have rubber seals between the spindle (or if you prefer, axle) and
the edges of the cups I wondered whether there was something fishy in there.
When we disassembled it, there was indeed. There was enough water to float a small shoal of fish,
and what is worse a considerable amount of rust and very little sign of its ever having been
lubricated with anything other than perhaps a bit of graphite. I am in danger of becoming one of
those cranky old codgers who will tell you that the first thing you with a new bike is to
disassemble it and grease all the bearings, including the bottom bracket.
But all of this is only by way of explaining that when we took the adjustable cup off the bottom
bracket, and drained out the water, what we found next was "one of the special plastic sleeves" (as
described by the Great Sheldon in <http://www.sheldonbrown.com/tooltips/bbadj.html> (http://www.sheldonbrown.com/tooltips/bbadj.html)).
I had previously only come across the idea of cutting a piece out of a squeezy(TM) bottle for this
purpose, and never in fact seen even one of those, but the item in question was a purpose-built
cylindrical white plastic bellows, and getting it out of the bottom bracket shell without tearing it
apart seemed to be all but impossible.
Do the manufacturers of white plastic bellows make a special plastic puller to remove them, or are
they meant to be disposed of and replace with a new one? (We stuffed it back in, despite its being
slightly wonky, and of course it is designed to go in much more easily than it comes out.) Is there
a knack? Is it all in the wrist action, champ?
