Fatal Swan
Senior Retro Guru
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I had Dura Ace BB on my road bike that needed this infuriating plastic tool insert, I said never again and accidentally ordered an XT one the same. I'm going to say never again again!
So I have two different brands of BB spanner for the old style Hollowtech II BBs. One of them has bare metal splines and the other is plastic covered, I guess to protect the notches in the cup, which can get a bit chewed. The FC25 insert doesn't fit properly into either of the spanners. It you slide the insert onto the BB cup first, the insert expands so there's no chance of getting the BB spanner onto the insert at all. And if you force the insert into the spanner first, that compresses the plastic so much that it'll barely fit over the notches on the cups, and indeed you have to press it in so hard that the insert will just fall out of the spanner again!
These little plastic Shimano tools are all well and good on parts like the crank preload bolt that only needs to be finger-tight but I just don't understand it for this application where the chance of torquing it to the correct spec (or even worse, removing one of these BBs that someone has actually managed to torque to the correct spec) without something slipping while high forces are being applied seem to be minimal.
Yes, I have put a nasty slice into my finger tonight through doing exactly this. A perfect system already that needed no tinkering with whatsoever - the fact that you have to supply the tool with every unit you sell tells you that your design has failed, in my view. Thanks, Shimano!
So I have two different brands of BB spanner for the old style Hollowtech II BBs. One of them has bare metal splines and the other is plastic covered, I guess to protect the notches in the cup, which can get a bit chewed. The FC25 insert doesn't fit properly into either of the spanners. It you slide the insert onto the BB cup first, the insert expands so there's no chance of getting the BB spanner onto the insert at all. And if you force the insert into the spanner first, that compresses the plastic so much that it'll barely fit over the notches on the cups, and indeed you have to press it in so hard that the insert will just fall out of the spanner again!
These little plastic Shimano tools are all well and good on parts like the crank preload bolt that only needs to be finger-tight but I just don't understand it for this application where the chance of torquing it to the correct spec (or even worse, removing one of these BBs that someone has actually managed to torque to the correct spec) without something slipping while high forces are being applied seem to be minimal.
Yes, I have put a nasty slice into my finger tonight through doing exactly this. A perfect system already that needed no tinkering with whatsoever - the fact that you have to supply the tool with every unit you sell tells you that your design has failed, in my view. Thanks, Shimano!
