Bottom bracket cup broken in frame

[surreypete]

My nextdoor neighbour is a keen cyclist, he has a Peugeot road bike that I always see him on and whilst chatting the other week he mentioned that he has a Raleigh mountain bike, not sure on the model but he said that he never uses it as it has a problem with the pedals and crank, well being a good neighbour I thought I'd have a look at it for him.

From what I can see it has an adjustable bottom bracket on it and one of the bottom bracket cups that hold the bearings in place has actually snapped off, the top circular part that sits outside the frame has snapped away from the threaded part that screws into the frame.

I'm writing this from memory from a couple of weeks back and I am pretty sure it was the drive side that was broken, the spindle moves up and down and from side to side, I can remember seeing all the ball bearings on the broken side still in the cage and everything is still held in place because both crank arms are still on.

What I want to know is how much trouble is it to remove the cups when the uppermost part is missing, I am hoping it will come undone by gently knocking round with a screwdriver?

I wouldn't mind helping him out as he is a good neighbour but I don't have any tools to fix an adjustable bottom bracket and if I have to buy them just to do this one job then he might be better off putting it in the bike shop.

[Bill]

That kind of a job probably would be better for a LBS to fix.

[DaveM]

If you can't unscrew it with the screwdriver-tap trick then you can carefully hacksaw through what remains of the cup. Once you done one clear cut through, it should get loose in the frame and be removed easily. Of course, try to avoid damaging the frame threads.

You can probably get this resolved without three-piece BB specific tools. Though you would need them to install a new one in. But if he goes to cartridge, that's a different tool of course.

[surreypete]

Thanks for the replies.

I might try getting it out just to see how hard it is, I like a bit of an adventure and doing this sounds fun, worst case scenario is we get it out, clean it all up and he just runs the frame down the LBS for a new bottom bracket to be fitted which should save money in labour rates as the hard part has already been done.

I was thinking along those exact lines daveM, I was even thinking of asking him to get some of the freeze spray plumbers use to freeze pipes when the water hasn't been turned off, (his son is a plumber) spraying that on the internal threaded bit to hopefully contract the internal size from the frame and make unscrewing it that little bit easier.

[surreypete]

We stripped this all down tonight and managed to get the broken cup out of the frame by using a piece of metal tapered at the end to go inside the cup, we tapped it in and turned it with mole grips.

From what I can see the bearing cup has broken in two, the bearing race is damaged the same side and one if the ball bearings is missing, the spindle is also damaged that side.

Gonna go out tomorrow and see what parts I can get, there's a LBS near me that deals in old spares, it's called re-cycle and they got a lot of old bikes out the back to use as spares donors so I'm hoping to get the bits I need for not much outlay.

I'll keep you posted.

[Joe_W]

So the threads are still A-OK? Great news, good luck finding a spare. If it is an older road bike the threading might be French, check out Sheldon Brown's page http://www.sheldonbrown.com/gloss_bo-z.html#bottom (table a bit further down).

[surreypete]

Cheers for the link Joe.

The threads in the frame are sound, so hopefully it should all go back together well if I can get hold of the spare parts.

Here's the broken bearing cup.

[attachment=702]

Here's the spindle, showing severe signs of wear on the side the cup snapped off, this side also has a damaged bearing cage with missing bearings.

[attachment=703]

The spindle has "R-3T K-6 P" on it, other then that it is 150mm long, it's for a Raleigh Amazon MTB so if anyone can shed some light on spare parts then feel free to help.

Just off out to try the local LBS in my area including a Raleigh dealer.

[Bill]

I just wanted to say WOW and glad you got it out!

[surreypete]

Found a good supplier on the bay that stocks all the older parts.

Although I tried that re-cycle bike shop and the guy there is gonna stick a sealed bottom bracket in the bike, the price for that is the same as all the older parts added together so I can't argue with that.

Saves me having to buy the tools to try and adjust the bearings up and then never using them again.

[Bill]

Very true, nothing wrong with going an easier way.

[trevgbb]

You have probably sorted this by now, but these parts are all standard and should be off the shelf at any lbs, about £15 at the most.
Some cup sets now come with splines instead of flats, the choice is yours, but the tool for splines costs about £8.
One thing to look out for is to get the axle in the right way, some are longer on one side and this usually goes to the cw side.