Spotlight: Enduro Pro Bearing Puller BBT-222 tool review
Enduro Bearings is best known for its, well, bearings, but the brand has also long offered a range of professional tools designed to make specialist repairs go smoother and more efficiently.
The latest addition to the company’s professional tool range is a revamp of the Pro Bearing Puller that not only improves the core function but adds a couple of useful features into the mix. And while this tool may not be useful to you, it’s so nicely made I couldn’t help but do a little show and tell.
The new Enduro Pro Bearing Puller
The BBT-222 is a blind hole bearing puller designed for knocking out bearings when you can’t easily get to them from the back. Such bearings most commonly appear in mountain bike suspension frames, but the tool is equally at home in pulling out almost any hub and bottom bracket bearings, too. And it does the task while keeping the bearing square, not rocking it out like a regular punch and hammer.
Blind hole bearing pullers are a common sight in the automotive industry, and even cycling tool brands like Park Tool and Unior now offer such things. However Enduro was arguably the first to offer such a tool in the cycling market (I bought my first Enduro Blind Hole Puller in approximately 2008), and the company’s latest version is a USA-made masterpiece.
The previous Enduro Pro Bearing Puller (BBT-200) was pure tool envy at first sight. The aluminium slide hammer was anodised gold and it slid on a weight-relieved and length-adjustable shaft. However, from personal experience, I can tell you that the 358 gram hammer was at times too light, and the cut-outs in the shaft made for more friction than necessary (and once, some pinched hand webbing – ouch).
Enduro’s brand-new Pro Bearing Puller (BBT-222) no longer favours the travelling mechanic and instead takes a simpler, albeit more effective approach with a wholly stainless steel construction. The sliding hammer is 450 g heavier than before, while the shaft has increased in diameter and now sits at a fixed length of 28.6 cm (11.25″). The result is a greatly more efficient and effective force for doing what this tool is designed to do. Enduro has kept to its design that forgoes a secondary handle, but I haven’t found it to be an issue.
At the business end is a series of nine wholly new expanding bearing collets made of hardened stainless steel and designed to work with bearing ranging from 6-30 mm internal diameter. Each collet is now more limited for the suggested bearing size it’ll expand into, but the result is a more positive engagement and almost certainly better durability (due to the reduced material flex required in use).
Most notably, the bodies of the larger-sized collets have been slimmed down substantially. In the past, I had tried to use the BBT-200 to remove a collapsed bearing from inside a freehub body to find that the body of the collet was too large to reach inside. This is now solved.
The new BBT-222 also includes a hefty 514 g chunk of steel that transforms the tool into a brutish mallet. This mallet features an easily removed striking face, with both soft polyurethane and brass mallet heads included (works with any 1 1/2” diameter 5/16-18 thread size mallet heads).
At the opposite side of the mallet head sits a 25.4 mm (1″) socket holder that’ll fit a number of cassette lock-ring tools. Enduro has also added magnets to assist with socket retention. Meanwhile, the handle/shaft has a 6 mm hex broached in so that it can be tightened into the mallet/socket head (not required for use, but a nice-to-have).
Currently, Enduro is only offering the BBT-222 as a whole kit including the mallet head, the full-size range of collets, and a tool roll. All told, you’re looking at 3.5 kilograms (7.7 lb) of stainless steel that will retail for US$399. The pricing is closely comparable to what Unior and Park tool offer, but either way this one is certainly aimed at the professional. For the casual user, there’s a myriad of blind hole bearing remover tools on eBay and Alibaba available at impressively low prices, but just don’t expect them to survive ongoing abuse.
Bonus spotlight: BRT-018 Collet
If you didn’t find the bearing puller too niche, then the new BRT-018 extractor collet may tip it over the edge. It’s designed for use with my favourite DUB/30 mm press-fit bottom bracket press and extractor, the Enduro BRT-002, and is a simple stainless steel stepped ring that will remove bearings from BSA29(DUB), BSA30, ITA29(DUB), and ITA30 cups where the clearance is otherwise too tight to use the stock expanding collet. This tool does require one bottom bracket cup to be removed from the frame in order to gain access at the back.
This tool is unlikely to find itself outside of a professional workshop, but one can still drool. More images this way >. 
Everything except for the mallet heads is stainless steel. 
The kit includes a generous number of collets. These expand into (and then behind) the inner bearing race. They can also be used to expand into the outer bearing race in the event of a broken bearing. 
The whole kit is supplied in a tool roll. 
A look inside. 
The new slide hammer (top) is no doubt simpler than the previous version (bottom), but its function is noticeably improved. 
The new Pro slide hammer (top) no longer has a length adjustment feature like the previous version. 
The new collet (left) offers a more compact shape than the previous version (right). This is a huge benefit for doing certain hub servicing (specifically Fulcrum/Campagnolo/Mavic freehub body repair where the inner bearing has collapsed). 
In the middle sits an expanding collet from the previous Pro Bearing Puller tool. You’ll note that the expansion size range for the new collets is now narrower. 
Two mallet head types are provided. Both will be more gentle than a usual steel striking surface. 
In hammer form, the Enduro is comparable in mass to Park Tool’s HMR-4 (the largest hammer they offer). The new Pro Bearing Puller also doubles as a hammer and a socket handle. 
One side of the mallet head is a socket holder. 
The BRT-018 is designed as an add-on to the BRT-002 press-fit bottom bracket tool. Its purpose is quite specific. 
The BRT-018 on the left versus the usual expanding collet provided.
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