Serviceability often gets overlooked when choosing a bottom bracket, but it determines whether you're replacing the whole unit every season or just swapping bearings when they eventually wear. The T47 Outboard ABEC-3 from Wheels Manufacturing uses machined aluminum cups with Enduro ABEC-3 bearings that can be pressed out and replaced independently of the cups themselves. When your bearings develop play or grit after a few thousand miles of mixed conditions, you're looking at a bearing swap rather than starting over with new hardware.

The outboard bearing position places the load-bearing surfaces outside the bottom bracket shell, which spreads the bearing stance wider than inboard designs allow. Wider stance means better distribution of pedaling forces across the bearing assembly, which translates to longer service intervals before you notice the telltale roughness that indicates bearing wear. Wheels Manufacturing machines these cups from aluminum and threads them directly into T47 shells following the same convention as BSA bottom brackets: left-hand thread on the drive side, right-hand thread on the non-drive side.

Shell width compatibility runs from 68mm through 100mm, covering road, gravel, and mountain applications using the T47 standard. The kit includes silicone dust seals that sit outside the bearings to block contamination before it reaches the rolling surfaces. A protective sleeve spans between the cups, shielding internal cable or hose routing from contact with the spinning crank spindle. Spacers in two thicknesses handle the fine-tuning required to eliminate lateral play once the crankset is installed.... Read More