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Re: Ball Bearing cage

To: Bob Nogueira <nogera@worldnet.att.net>
Subject: Re: Ball Bearing cage
From: Jim Juhas <james.f.juhas@snet.net>
Date: Sun, 05 Nov 2006 19:28:22 -0500
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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