Greatestalltime

I see nice ones like wheels manufacturing for around 75$, but the cheap guy in me wonders if any of these cheaper ones are any good.

Does anyone have any good things to say about some that are on eBay or Amazon for around 30$? The presses look similar just with less drifts. The two BB I have to deal with are DA and a wheels mfg. that I could just pop out the bearings.

And for the extractor are there any good recommendations? There’s the Park and shimano ones that you insert and the splines pop out after the bracket or bearing and ones made by icetoolz that look quite a bet less well made. I’ve also seen a puller or two from China that don’t require a hammer which seems nice if they work.

Im tired of going to the shop and this is one more area I’d like to do myself.

Thanks

rubiksoval

I have a 25 dollar one off Ebay. Works fine.

As long as everything is flush, you're good. I've even gotten a flat surface and a hammer and just pounded it in (my carbon bike bb shell is not a tight fit). Especially with the wheels manufacturing, if it's an outboard BB, threading the NDS in will ensure everything is appropriately lined up once you get the DS mostly in.

'02 nrs

good opportunity to improvise-puller for Klein type BB.could just tap the end of the axle to remove pressed in bearing & chance nicking the axle.just as ez to install by using a long stove bolt.what style BB are you working with???

chaadster

I’m in pretty much the same boat right now, and looking at the Wheels Mfg press for the same reasons.

What it seems to me, as someone who has not used a proper press tool but has jimmied a headset cup press from threaded rod and washers, is that the big deal is ease of use. Like rubiksoval mentioned, the act of pressing bearings/cups in is pretty basic and can be accomplished in basic ways, but it can also be a lot easier having the right tool for the job, and a lot quicker if the right tool is also easy to use.

There are those combo press/extractor types with lots of removable bits; those seem fiddly to me. I like the Wheels Mfg press only unit because it has the two stepped adapters on each side which should provide good, secure fitting to the most common cup/bearing sizes. Certainly that the adapters are fixed trades off some versatility, like perhaps it’s not perfectly fitted for the newest, latest standard (e.g. SRAM Dub; dunno), but I’m thinking that if it works for what you’ve got, it’ll work well.

For the same reason to avoid the complicated, fiddly combo units, I’ll probably go with a Park bearing extractor for $35 or whatever, because it seems easy to use and a good match for the BB types I have (Campagnolo Power Torque excepted; what a PITA that pressed-on-the-crank-arm bearing is!).

If you’re looking after a wide variety of BBs, it may make sense to bite the bullet and go for a big, versatile press/puller set which will work on everything, but on the other hand, it rarely seems to pour when it rains when it comes to BB servicing, and across my dozen bikes at my riding mileage, I only need to do 1 of them every couple of years or so (again, that f’in’ PowerTorque seems to come up more often than others!), so I don’t feel there’s any urgency to covering all the bases at once, and rather responding to needs for new tools as they arise.

Greatestalltime

That perfectly sums it up.

Whenever I go cheap I often regret it. And you’re right. The Wheels mfg. looks so simple and easy to use. I’ll very likely go with that and the Park extractor.

Though...just saw this YouTube guy and he likes (mostly) this press extractor combo with no hammering and it’s one of the cheaper Chinese ones. Except he had some issues with some odd size BB.


I think I’ll stick with the Park/Wheels combo —no hammer does sound nice and safe though.

Greatestalltime

The two pressed ones I have are a 9100 DA and a Wheels manufacturing (the kind that threads together) that only the bearings will need to be removed when it’s time.