Took me 5 years to figure out I was greasing the wrong part of my bottom bracket

I was at the shop last month rebuilding a customer's old Fuji and an intern walked over and asked why I was packing grease into the bearing cups instead of the spindle itself. I told him that's how I always did it, but he pulled up a service manual on his phone and sure enough I had been doing it backwards since 2019. The seals had been trapping gunk and water for years because I was putting grease in the wrong spot. Anyone else have a basic job that took them way too long to finally get right?

3 comments

3 Comments

charlie19816d ago

Saw a similar thing happen with a buddy who was rebuilding his single speed. He swore by greasing the spindle threads and just wiped a thin layer on the bearings. One day we compared notes after I read the same manual, and he was dead wrong too. The seals just push all that extra grease into the frame if you pack the cups wrong, it's a total waste. Now I always pack the bearings themselves first and only put a tiny bit on the spindle to keep it from seizing. It's wild how one tiny habit can mess up years of riding if nobody catches it. Makes me wonder what other basic stuff I'm probably still doing backwards without knowing.

kai_ramirez3816d ago

@charlie198 right there with you man, it's crazy how easy it is to think you're doing it right

oliviabutler15d ago

Admit it, we've all got at least one deeply ingrained bad habit we're blissfully unaware of.