tried to remove the bb from my 1996 cannondale last night. It's stuck tight. Managed to break all the teeth off the plastic non drive side cup in the process too – will this prevent me from removing the drive side too? I'm thinking when i get the drive side out i can attack the remaining plastic with some pliers or a sharp knife.

I know i need more leverage on the bb, but the spanner i'm using is a 30mm adjustable and i can't find a bit of tube to go over the end, is scaffold pole my only option? any ideas of where to find a bit?

Anyway of clamping the BB in a vice and using the frame as leverage? Has worked for me in the past. Otherwise try soaking in plusgas

don't have a bench vice unfortunately. Going to go to halfrauds tonight to look for plusgas.

Going to go to halfrauds tonight to look for plusgas.

Didn't stock it when I went looking for some. I got mine from a little motor factor near home.

bah. will have to wait till the weekend then.

Hi,
Depending on the cartridge unit fitted you may be able to knock the axle through from the drive side with hammer past the nylon cup.

This should leave you with just the cups.

Then if needed on the drive side (left hand thread) (if that's stuck too?) you can put a large right hand threaded bolt through from the non drive side, fix the bb tool in place on the rh cup and lock with the matching nut and washer from the bolt or just the bolt and washer.

Then through the non drive side hold the bolt head with a long socket.

Then start to tighten the nut on the drive side with ring spanner.
You may need extra leverage and lube! ..i.e pole, plus gas.

basically what happens is as you tighten the nut clockwise it will grip to the point it passes the opposing grip of the left hand thread/right hand cup.

This now leaves you with two sides to attack the offending nylon left hand bb cup. chop out carefully!

Hope that give you some ideas?

Zone

I used an old seat post to get some extra leverage when removing a stubborn bb.

zone – sounds complicated, think i'll have it in the lbs by then!

bob – due to the size of the bb tool i need a massive adjustable spanner to grip it and the handle for the spanner is too large to fit in a seat post. i've used this trick in the past for ht2 bbs though. I'm going to go in search of a bit of scaffold pole next i think.

Halfords don't plus gas but they do they're own aerosol of stuff that works..

Other than that try pouring some coke down the seat tube so that you fill the BB shell up – might be able to fizz it's way through some corrosion. I've used coke to clean oil spills up off the driveway, so it;s good for something 😀