It’s a SRAM dub BB and I bought the bearing press/removal kit pictured. I’ve never done this before so I just want to make sure I’m going about this correctly. As far as I understand it, I can just take this bearing removal tool and match up the correct drift to my BB size and slowly push it out. What I’m not clear on is whether I’m able to only remove the bearing itself or if I’m removing the bearings along with the bearing cups and/or some other part of the BB. I’ve tried watching a bunch of different videos but none seem to show me exactly what I’m wanting to see. TIA.
by iareeric
7 Comments
That’s a cartridge bearing. These bearings do not need regular maintenance like the old cup and cone of yesteryear.
If you think they’re contaminated because you were pedalling under water crossing a river, or something similar, you can carefully pry off the plastic black strip to access the inside but if you’re going to the trouble of pulling them just buy new bearings. The whole bearing will come out as one piece.
They are cheap, just replace them.
From the looks of it, that tool will engage the inner race to push the bearing out. This will put undue stress on the bearing and may damage it. You only do this when replacing the bearings.
These bearings are not really serviceable and meant to be replaced when they go bad.
Thanks for all of the info. I will order some new bearings and proceed with my first BB bearing replacement 🙂
If you really want to service these, which isn’t the most practical plan in most cases but might sometimes be a matter of necessity, you do it by leaving the bearings on the bike, carefully removing the plastic outer seal, then the main bearing seal (this video shows it for the BSA version: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTYrumPPI10&t=60s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTYrumPPI10&t=60s) ), then you have access to the bearings and can flush in solvent, blow it out with compressed air, then inject it with grease and put it back together. There’s nothing technically wrong with doing that kind of thing, it can make things work great if cleaning and lubing was your only problem as in some other kinds of bearings that are more robust, but with something like DUB the plastic outer shield isn’t really meant to be removed and reinstalled without breaking it, and the whole basic problem with DUB is the bearing balls are tiny and usually by the time there are symptoms that bring you to do any of this, you really need new bearings.
Here there’s nothing gained by doing it off the bike even if you could get the BB out in a way that doesn’t overload the inner race.
Creaking can also be caused by the cranks not being greased and or tightened. Light coat of grease on crank arm/spindle interface. Grease on threads of bolts used to fix cranks, tightened to spec.