Cheapskate alert! Should I service my HT2 bearings??

keef66

My 105 BB is 2 years old. Used year round but with full mudguards and modest mileage. Last night I noticed quite a bit of grease appeared to have escaped from the drive side bearing. Being a tinkerer I whipped out the crankset to have a look. The grease appears clean, and the bearing seems to run smoothly with no discernible play. The BB shell is spotless inside. The non drive side is showing no leakage, although this might be because it's covered by a flush fitting plastic spacer (it's a triple)

Should I just leave it as it is for now, and just replace both bearings as / when something fails mechanically? Or, with winter approaching, should I attempt to prise off the seals and pack with fresh grease in an attempt to prolong the life of the things? Or will this likely damage the seals and only accelerate grease loss / bearing demise?

father_jack

If the bearings are leaking gease, and you have the BB out may as well service it, either replace bearings or if they rotate fine just fresh grease and new seals.

rake

as an upgrade ht2 uses a standard size engineering bearing unlike gxp, which means you can get readily avaiable top quality bearings fairly cheaply, they are just a tight fit into the cups, can be pressed/hammered into place. anything like nsk, skf etc are all good bearings.
6805 is the size, 25mmx37mmx7mm deep groove (2RS means 'two rubber seals' one each side).
http://www.akbearings.co.uk/product.asp?P_ID=680
cheap as chips and probably better quality.

turnerjohn

keef66 wrote:

My 105 BB is 2 years old. Used year round but with full mudguards and modest mileage. Last night I noticed quite a bit of grease appeared to have escaped from the drive side bearing. Being a tinkerer I whipped out the crankset to have a look. The grease appears clean, and the bearing seems to run smoothly with no discernible play. The BB shell is spotless inside. The non drive side is showing no leakage, although this might be because it's covered by a flush fitting plastic spacer (it's a triple)

Should I just leave it as it is for now, and just replace both bearings as / when something fails mechanically? Or, with winter approaching, should I attempt to prise off the seals and pack with fresh grease in an attempt to prolong the life of the things? Or will this likely damage the seals and only accelerate grease loss / bearing demise?

If it aint broke dont try and fix it !

That grease is just working its way out and taking any muck with it...so the bearings are clean. You can take the bearing out but to honist a 105 BB isn't expensive and would be loads easier to do (you need a bearing puller for starters to remove the old bearings) 2 years on a BB isn't bad going at all !