Having dutifully gone out and bought the spanner to fit my H2 bottom bracket, I notice there’s a splined plastic cap to finish the fitting of the LH crank.

Am I going to have to get my wallet out again for another tool or is there an alternative method of getting it nipped up?

The park one comes with it on the other end.

the plastic ones don’t cost much, and often come with cranksets, alloy ones are available also

If you have the Park Tool BBT-9 it’s the plastic bit on the other end of the tool:

http://www.parktool.com/product/bottom-bracket-tool-bbt-9

Otherwise you might get it out with a large flathead screwdriver, being careful. It’s not tightly screwed in.

A plastic tyre lever does the job OK

It only needs to be finger tight, over tightening probably causes more BB problems than facing/not facing the BB shell.

£1.49 delivered for the correct tool here:
http://www.tweekscycles.com/Search.do?method=delegate&n=3339&p=33901&s=tl-fc16

Or £6.95 delivered for the IceToolz tool that does both here:
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/250980492382

Cheers all. Combination of being a skinflint and wanting to get out tomorrow on my shiny new cranks.

As above, a tyre lever sometimes fits, or a chainring bolt spanner definately does.

I have used a flat blade file that happensto fit between two splines. Works perfect, you can file stuff with it too.
Anything that can turn it is fine.

20p fits spot on.

correct tool is only 20p

literally

(bah ! beaten again 🙁 )

neilforrow – Member

20p fits spot on.

every day’s a school day. I’ve had dozens and dozens of these on and off (with the tool) and never thought of that. Nice one 😀

Its not like it has to be done up very tight anyway.

All done now. Tyre lever did the trick. Wish I’d thought of the 20p.

Thanks to everyone who helped out.