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Notes -
Jesus Christ, BB replacement has been such a pain for me. I too had a square taper, but purchased one of the incorrect depth to start. The manufacturers don't even list what you have anymore since they use interchangable suppliers, and my budget hybrid bike had one that failed after a measley 2,500 miles which is absolutely pathetic for such a basic component.
Between the opaque nature of diagnosing it and the need for specialized tools, it's the bike repair job that gets the biggest thumbs down from me.
If you haven't checked out the park tool videos on YouTube yet for these things, do. They're awesome at least.
Yeah, at this point I've spent as much on tools for taking out a square taper and fixing all the other shit wrong with my bike as I would have buying a new beater off craigslist. I'm down to the cups and they're so rusty they may as well be welded to the frame. My wife is not amused.
In my defense, we got a (relatively, for our area) lot of snow this year and half an inch of snow induces such panic in the populace that a fleet of plows immediately dump a metric ton of salt on every road. Now that spring is here, I've replaced the chain, cassette and derailleur. FML.
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Park Tool videos are solid. I really like RJ The Bike Guy too for his videos showing how you can do the same work without specialised tools and why you should save yourself a lot of trouble and just spend the money on the right tool, even if it's not the pro spec Park Tool version.
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