BB Cup on it's way out?

freehub

Hi.

My bike has almost done close to 3000 miles, is it reasonable to expect a BB Cup to be close to the end of it's life by now?

I haver noticed a creaking noise coming from what appears to be the crank area, now I've been plagued with this before but has always being coming from the none drive side and taking the crank arm off and re installing fixes it, now the noise only happens when I'm climbing and giving it some propor power on the flats like sprinting, and is coming from the drive side.

We thought it was the bolts on the chainset but they've since being tightened but when the chainset was took off we noticed that the none drive side cup turned smoothly while it appears there is some roughness in the drive side, could this be a sign of failure?

It's no biggy really as I've got some 7800 cups on hold but if it won't cause any damage to the axel or anything is it possible to keep it running untill it totally goes?

I did have a headset problem whereby when I pulled or pushed on the handlebars I tended to get creaking, we cleaned it all and regreased the bearings and it stopped, but was told I should get a new set of bearings, I was wondering if it could be that, but this creaking when it occours is frequent clicks, probably like 4 a second or something like that, and not something I'd think would come from a headset?

Any thoughts?


Thanks
Will.

topdude

If one bearing feels rough change them both now, BB cups are cheap and it will only get worse. Also it will eliminate the BB as the cause of your noise problem.
If replacing them yourself you need the correct tool and the new ones need to be greased and done up as tight as you can with the tool by hand.

freehub

I have the tools, what would happen if I left it? Would it wear away at the axel?

Mister W

No, they are cartridge bearings so the wearing surfaces are all enclosed in the cartridge. It will just get more and more noisy and harder to pedal until it seizes up.