BB - replace or not?
I had a dreadful creaking and groaning from the BB area of the bike - only when standing. At the weekend it got worse and was unbearable. Given it is time to swap to the best bike I was holding back doing anything until the swap.
Its a standard Shimano 5700 BB on a Ribble gran Fondo.
Today I stripped it all off removed the BB (one side unscrewed with little or no effort but it was more than finger tight), I cleaned off all the old grease, inspected, cleaned out the threads, regreased everything and tightened it all up. There was no sign of wear (for all you can see in a sealed cartridge) and the bearings/cartridge rotated smoothly.
It now rides silently.
So the question is, will it last? Was it creaking because it was not tight enough?
Ribble are doing new BBs for about £14 and I am tempted to order a replacement as a spare.
Any thoughts?
Its a standard Shimano 5700 BB on a Ribble gran Fondo.
Today I stripped it all off removed the BB (one side unscrewed with little or no effort but it was more than finger tight), I cleaned off all the old grease, inspected, cleaned out the threads, regreased everything and tightened it all up. There was no sign of wear (for all you can see in a sealed cartridge) and the bearings/cartridge rotated smoothly.
It now rides silently.
So the question is, will it last? Was it creaking because it was not tight enough?
Ribble are doing new BBs for about £14 and I am tempted to order a replacement as a spare.
Any thoughts?
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Comments
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Probably, to both questions. It's fairly common for a BB that's not properly tight to make noises and by peeling back the thin rubber seal to the bearings you can flush and re-grease them as well which will about triple the life of your BB. You did well by greasing the threads and make sure the BB is torqued to spec.Navrig2 wrote:So the question is, will it last? Was it creaking because it was not tight enough?
Any thoughts?0
