Shimano Hollow Tech 2 Re-bearing

Re-Balling Shimano Hollowtech 2 Bearings Service Tutorial.
Yes you do not need to buy a new BB only the loose balls for the bearing. In this video you see how to add new loose balls to the bearing on Shimano's Hollow Tech 2 Bottom brackets.
Basic Tools are required and some patience with the re-bearing balls.
The races of the bearings allow at least 4 times of re-bearing.
Balls were pitted under the Microscope.
For maximum speed suggested MG chemicals white Lithium grease. You will have to check from time to time the bearings ( takes 2 minutes to check them).

[@michaellaforte6964]

Freezer! Genius move! Head blown right there! Brilliant! Gotta try this, I would’ve gone whack-a-mole method!

[@michaellaforte6964]

Well, I went ahead and did this out of curiosity to see if they really were pitted or what. Turns out they looked good inside once I wiped them down and could remove an extra stuck on layer of what must’ve been old grease. Have had this BB for close to 15 years and never did anything to it. But, at each level of re-assembly, they just became more and more frozen again. They worked pretty good with fresh grease and returning the seals, but once pressed back into the cups they became no good. Have gone with new BBR60. Smooth again and lighter. Was an interesting process to go through just for academic purposes, but I definitely couldn’t get it all reassembled and working beautifully. I also have a full cup on one side and a polished on the other while also have a 6mm wide bearing on one side and a 7mm wide bearing on the other. I think this is strange, like maybe one is from a 105 while the other is an Ultegra or something. I don’t remember a shop ever replacing one side. So there’s a good chance I may have mixed up the seals and also which bearing went in which cup, though I kept things organized so IDK, seems more like I just couldn’t get things re-seated perfectly correctly and to some kind of proper tolerances. Scrap parts now.

[@danfuerthgillis4483]

I hear you from the amount of work I had to do and take each step, I would only do this to add ceramic balls to the bearing. The price on aliexpress is around $25 for CERAMIC balls hybrid BB. So not worth the time and effort at all. www.aliexpress.com/item/MTB-Bike-Bicycle-Hollow-Bottom-Bracket-Axis-BB-Cycling-Aluminum-Alloy-Waterproof-BSA-68-73mm-Crank/33001084519.html?spm=a2g0s.9042311.0.0.27424c4dK3aqhR I got a few of those and those are on most of my bikes from road bikes to mountain bikes. For 11$ why bother lol

[@Kupal2024]

Nice tutorial 👍👍

[@torqueytorque8861]

Thanks for the amazing video! I agree that this tedious exercise may not make sense since replacement bearings are $12, but as you disccovered in your other video, the quality of the balls in these replacement bearings is inferior, made from softer/cheaper steel, leading to short life. If you used higher quality balls (made from harder stainless steel, for example), then I believe this rebuild could be worth the trouble!

[@danfuerthgillis4483]

Thanks as I mentioned this was just an exercise to see if it was possible to replace the balls. I know for 25$ you can just buy a whole new bottom bracket, but that is why these Corps are stealing our money because they have taught us to throw away our money. The issue here is that you can only do this s fee times due to the compression and expansion of the bearing mounts. These balls are very small so any deviation on one section will cause noises. Personally I still run my cheap road bike with a square taper shaft with caged bearings and that thing is 5 minutes to redo the entire bottom bracket. And since they are loose caged bearings I can make the bottom bracket smooth as butter and spins much easier than these sealed bearing bottom brackets. Thanks for watching!!

[@torqueytorque8861]

@@danfuerthgillis4483 Yes, sadly, too many things today are made to be disposable instead of rebuildable. :(

[@michaellaforte6964]

Would you replace the steel bearings with ceramic instead, or do ceramic have different races?

[@GNX157]

I remove the cup from the bike and remove the outer seal and use warm waster, an old tooth brush, and dawn dish soap and clean out the dirt and old grease. After drying, I use a vitamin needle to inject new Phil Woods hydrophobic grease in there, then pop the seal back in and assemble. The Phil Woods grease is superior to white lithium. I wouldn’t let that anywhere near my bearings.

[@danfuerthgillis4483]

The reason for lithium is based on the viscosity factor, it does not cake up, it is super smooth ( MG Chemicals that use for bikes and firearms slides) and high heat tolerant. One issue with these smaller balls in the bearings is you need to use a very thin viscous grease as the balls are too small and need to be constantly greased. Lithum is the only choice as all other greases are too thick to maintain a steady flow around the patch of the balls. The BB when I take them apart the Lithum grease is never caked up and never black and puts much less wear ( pitting) on the bearing balls. 1 year into it the same balls are inside my Cheap road bike running caged bearing balls ( 1/4 sized balls) on the BB. The hubs are now pushing 2 years without thousands of KM's barely any pitting on the hub balls.

[@GNX157]

@@danfuerthgillis4483 Well, if you’d like to know another great grease, look into the Phil Woods. It’s not thick, and being hydrophobic, it’s very resistant to being washed away by water.

[@danfuerthgillis4483]

@@GNX157 I have it and use it for the bike head bearings ( even for the car bearings on the alternator 😂). But this lithium super slick grease is awesome one time application on the 9 mm and 22lr firearms and it stays there on the slide rails until your next tare-down for maintenance.

[@michaellaforte6964]

Any thoughts on using Finish Line with Teflon grease? It’s white, not sure if it’s lithium base, though there’s another one that I think is all Teflon and not lithium

[@rdmadventure1603]

Good job ser

[@ivankajtaz6084]

Hello sir, interesting thing is, i dismantled my bb cup without pressing the bearing out and crown was on that side and not the opposite like you showed in the video. Is that a possibility on different shimano bb cups and bearings?

[@danfuerthgillis4483]

Yes there are several different bearings used on these BB’s some have larger outer cups.

[@milorocky6960]

pro tip: watch movies on InstaFlixxer. I've been using it for watching a lot of movies recently.

[@aaronaugust7904]

@Milo Rocky Yea, have been using InstaFlixxer for since december myself =)

[@ΣΤΑΥΡΟΣΓΚΕΡΛΕΣ]

hello. do you use heat only for removal but not to put the bearing back? heat for removal and freezer only to install , right? second the visconsity of the grease is measured in nlgi. usually number 2 is the standard but i find it really thick. so pack with nlgi 0 or 1 and up to 1.5 . also if you want to extend the life of the bearings use high pressure grease. it totally resist water and it can withstand your weight and jumps with ease. if you can find extreme pressure grease with nlgi 1 , it is ideal .

[@danfuerthgillis4483]

Since this project was only mean to prove how crappy the little balls ara that Shimano uses, the heat is to remove the bearing. You need to also remember that once you freeze the bearing and install it into the cup, you need to allow the bearing to come up to room temperature before you can spin it, star slowly at first. I use Mg chemicals white thin lithium grease which survived the freezing part.

[@jim348]

Lovely job sir. Thanks for the vid. What size bearing balls?

[@danfuerthgillis4483]

These are 1/8 " balls. This video was just a mental exercise to see if re-balling was possible. It is simply not worth doing this since a new ceramic bearing sealed BB is around $25 from AliExpress. There are also bearings already sold individually to install into the these cups, just need to put those bearings in the freezer and install them later. The cheaper BB are around $12 so really order a few as backups. Thanks for watching this video !!

[@jim348]

I'm still going to attempt to do what you did in the video. Maintaining my bike to a high standard using minimal resources and minimal waste is my aim. That's why your video interests me so much. 1 second ago

[@danfuerthgillis4483]

@@jim348 Yes right now we are under a complete lockdown, so I have to buy only from Amazon Canada for bike parts as bike stores have been shut down for 2 months. I don't want to get into this Corona crap but the World Economy was dead in late 2019, 15 trillion US stolen from the stock market is enough to bail out all companies and even pay for people to stay at home, notice in 2008 they let everyone lose their homes did not pay people to stay home. This is nothing but a reboot of the world economy. Sucks for me I can't be home contracts for maintenance so have to go in everyday. Keep safe man it's going to be a ride like nothing we have ever seen. We may have to trade bike parts soon lmao!!

[@ljobzbikeexplorer2654]

Good Job Sir,, what the size of 15 ball bearing,,🙏

[@jetvasquez667]

3.5mm

[@geararellanoii]

How do you warm it?

[@danfuerthgillis4483]

Blow torch going around the cup or a hot air station which is what I used.

[@jetvasquez667]

what size of bearing sir？

[@danfuerthgillis4483]

Shimano BB60 but I did switch these later for the BBR60 Ultegra.

[@junaidydharma6966]

what type of your bb sir?

[@danfuerthgillis4483]

Shimano BB60 but I did switch these later for the BBR60 Ultegra.

[@michaellaforte6964]

@@danfuerthgillis4483 what’s the difference btw the BB60 and BBR60?

[@danfuerthgillis4483]

@@michaellaforte6964 BBR60 is lighter and uses smaller cups, it’s recommended for Ultegra, requires the use of the adapters removal tool. The BB60 is the older design with standard tool removal.

[@michaellaforte6964]

@@danfuerthgillis4483 thank you! I’ve got the strangest thing, the two cups and bearings are not the same. One bearing is 6mm while the other is 7mm wide, they both have the same 37/25 in/outside diameter but the seals aren’t the same and one had a thicker cup wall while the other has a thinner wall and then a thin gasket seal. It’s as if they’re from two different generations or else two different lines like ultegra and 105 or something. They work, but it’s weird. I bought this Ultegra groupo new back in ‘07. Weird

[@danfuerthgillis4483]

@@michaellaforte6964 That could be for drive side the 7 mm one. Internally they have to allow for a 24 mm spindle to go through.

[@worldofameiso5491]

This is a 30 dollar part. No point in doing all this effort for a reasonably low priced part.

[@danfuerthgillis4483]

This project was not meant to replace that $30 part, it was to reveal how cheap and crappy that $30 part is.