Bearing Cage

Evening all,
I've got a stronglight french threaded bottom bracket, this might be a stupid question but are all bearing cages the same size? Thought there was something dodgy going on so took off the cranks etc and the cage on the fixed cup side has snapped in half!
Cheers!

Get rid of the cages and use loose balls

Use Loose Balls

[INDENT] Most newer bicycles come with "caged" bearing balls-the balls are held in a metal or plastic retainer. This makes it easier to install the balls, but usually at a cost in performance. A standard three-piece type bottom bracket takes 11 loose 1/4-inch balls per side. Most retainers hold fewer balls, so each ball and its contact points with the cup and cone are more heavily stressed. This causes higher friction and more rapid wear. If your bottom bracket came with retainers holding fewer than 11 balls, I strongly recommend that you replace them with loose balls. This is not really difficult to do. if you know how.
The frame should be lying on its right side, with the fixed cup and liner installed. Squirt plenty of grease into both cups.
Set 11 balls into the adjustable cup. Drop the shorter end of the spindle into the cup, and it will hold the balls in place even if you are using a thin grease. Holding the adjustable cup and spindle as a unit, turn them over so that the cup is on top. Set this assembly aside in this position, supported by the spindle. (A convenient place to put it temporarily is into the right crank: the chain wheel will prevent it from falling over.)
Next, stick a finger up through the hole in the fixed cup to keep the balls from falling through. Drop 11 balls down into the cup and arrange them in a circle around your finger.
Then, pick up the spindle (with the adjustable cup already installed) and lower it down until it rests on the finger that is sticking up through the fixed cup. Lower it farther, until you can begin to screw the adjustable cup into the bottom bracket threads.
Keep the spindle supported from below until the adjustable cup is screwed well in, because if you release the spindle while the cup is very loose, the balls may fall out of position.

[/INDENT]Don't Mix Balls

Don't try to reuse some of the balls from your retainer-it is very important that all of the balls in a race be from the same production lot so that they will all be the same size. Good quality bearing balls from a given lot will usually be within two or three millionths of an inch of each other in size, but if you mix lots the difference can easily be 25 or 30 millionths. If there is this much difference in size, the smaller ones might just as well be missing for all the good they will do!

http://www.sheldonbrown.com/tooltips/bbadj.html

thanks!
now to be a real pain....any where on the internet in the UK sell those plastic bottom bracket sleeves? I had the misfortune to melt mine with a blow torch when trying to loosen the fixed cup.
Am sure i saw one ages ago but can't find the page now.

LBS, should have one for less than a fiver

Get rid of the cages and use loose balls

+1

Dump the cage.