Having used my Thorn for several thousand miles and not had to "fix" anything... I decided to remove the cranks and EBB, partly because I wanted to add it to my list of "things I can do confidently and have the right tools for"... and partly because I wanted to grease the crank/axle interface, and check the BB shell/EBB for corosion etc.
The cranks I have are Shimano XT Hollowtech (Mk I), which use a self extracting 10mm allen bolt. This could be unscrewed with a standard allen key, but you might not get enough leverage. I used a wrench, which was still very hard to get moving. The cranks came off easy as anything (once the initial tightness was overcome). I then undid the two EBB retaining bolts and slid the EBB out of the BB shell. It was slightly tight due to ingress of dirt/water, but I'm confident that a spray of WD40 down the seat tube would have loosened it up.
There was a tiny amount of rust inside the BB shell, but this mostly wiped off. The axle/crank interface (of the octalink variety) was rust free.
I greased the BB shell interior, and slid the EBB back in. Greased the axle and cranks and reassembled. Park tools recommend you attached the cranks with a torque of 34 to 44 Nm... (their website states 305-391 inch-pounds, which I converted).
All in all a very quick job, which will be much quicker now I know what to expect. I'm going to do this every 6 months or so... possibly overkill, but I like to know that the parts of the bike near road spray are being looked after.
I hope that is of use to someone... I will add some pictures next time I do it.
