I don't know if this experience is applicable, but back when I was much
more in to bicycling than I am now, a common racer's trick was to
discard the ball cage from the crank bearings and use loose balls
instead. I recall that this would typically add two balls to a normal
complement of about ten with the cage. The notion was that more balls
would more evenly distribute the load and create less, not more friction.
I did it on mine because I wanted to be like a racer. One of the bikes
has served years and countless miles on a training stand that I used for
my daily aerobic workout, with never a failure.
Bike bottom ends take the most punishment.
Bob Nogueira wrote:
>Well my question, do you think I could simply not use the cage to evenly
>locate the ball bearings around the cam and instead use more ball bearings
>so they remain evenly spaced?
>( Simply put does the cage in a ball bearing unit function only to space the
>bearings and can packing more ball bearings into the unit substitute for
>using a cage?)
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