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Fought a stuck bottom bracket for 6 hours before calling a friend
I was swapping out an old square taper bottom bracket on a 90s Schwinn I picked up at a garage sale. Figured it would be a 30 minute job, but the thing was seized on there something fierce. Tried penetrating oil, a breaker bar, even some heat from a heat gun, nothing budged. Finally called a buddy who works at a shop and he told me to use a long pipe as a cheater bar and lean into it slow. Took another 45 minutes of grunting and swearing but it finally cracked loose. Has anyone else dealt with a bottom bracket that just refused to move?
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the_emma4mo ago
Oh man, that's brutal. A long cheater bar and slow pressure has saved me more times than I can count. Also, if you've got one, an impact wrench can sometimes rattle them loose when nothing else works.
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elizabethf854mo ago
My cheater bar is basically my best friend at this point, even though it's just a rusty pipe I found in my garage haha. The impact wrench trick is solid too, but last time I tried mine I nearly launched a socket through my neighbor's fence. Slow pressure is where it's at though, the one time I got impatient and yanked hard I ended up on my back with the wrench flying past my ear. Learned my lesson the hard way, guess that's what I get for thinking I was stronger than a 20 year old rust bolt lol.
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