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I gave my bike to the mechanic a few weeks ago since I have had some problems with my Token bottom bracket. He mounted a new Rotor BBright 4624L on my bike. Coming back from a gravel ride yesterday I heard that there is sand in the bottom bracket somewhere and I took off the crank to clean everything. There I saw that the tube that usually is connected with the bottom bracket is loose. Hopefully you can see this on the pictures. I have never seen something like that before and want to know whether this is normal.

My bike is an Open U.P.

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2 Answers 2

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The sleeve provides a tiny amount of extra protection for the bearings and is not structural in this instance. They are often fiddly to fit on these "boutique" bottom brackets and even people who deal with them frequently can cock up the tube alignment from time to time. You may be able to break it up with a screwdriver, if it's brittle enough, to remove the pieces. Otherwise you will need to whip the BB out to remove it. Not having the tube there won't affect bearing life in any meaningful way unless you regularly fill your frame with sand.

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  • thanks for your answer. Can I leave the sleeve inside? I mean it is not fixed and with a bit of force I can move it but is is not compeletely loose hanging around in the bb.
    – ruedi
    Nov 1, 2020 at 16:58
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    @ruedi . It will move around and make irritating noises if not sorted
    – Noise
    Nov 1, 2020 at 18:23
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    It may be worth noting that for some bottom brackets (not this particular one), the sleeve is structural. These are called thread together BBs. To be clear, this Rotor one is not one of those.
    – Weiwen Ng
    Nov 2, 2020 at 19:02
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I think you definitely have to option of returning to your mechanic to get this issue sorted out for no extra charge. The job has not been completed quite right.

It may be that the tube connecting the two bearing cups has simply shifted and come loose from one of the cups, in which case you’d need to find a way to prevent it from reoccurring.

Something I’d want to I check is that the bottom bracket model is suitable for the width of your bottom bracket shell. Some bottom bracket models fit in a wider shell, but the central tube is not long enough.

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    It's one of the rubbish telescoping tubes. It will have come unclipped during installation. they are hateful things
    – Noise
    Nov 1, 2020 at 18:25

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