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Bottom bracket mess

Old 12-18-10, 05:45 PM
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Bottom bracket mess

I know I'm going to need to duck and cover on this one, because I've really fouled this one up and know it.

My commuter bike is a 1974 Raleigh Sports. I love it, have been riding it regularly for 2.5 years, and have done many part replacements, upgrades, and rebuilds as various parts have given out.

About a year ago the bottom bracket started creaking and grinding. I rebuilt the BB (noticing that the races are rather pitted), and all was well. Six months later, the sound came back. I rode with the sound for awhile until salt/slush season came so that taking the bike off line for awhile wouldn't make a difference. I really like the frame's fit and generally riding a classic old three-speed, so I decided to give the bike one last chance and replace the crankset with a modern Phil Wood/Sugino system. (Refresher just in case some don't know: the old Raleighs use a 26 tpi BB threading incompatible everything to my knowledge except with custom-order Phil Wood retaining rings, so this is basically the only option other than rethreading the BB shell or pulling a BB out of a parts bike.) Here's where the mess starts.

I got the old bottom bracket apart again, and the fixed cup was a bear. I murdered my Mark Stonich fixed cup tool but did manage to get the fixed cup out. (His cotter press is a dream, though I can't say as much about his fixed cup tool.) Then I started the installation of the new parts. The left side - the other, good side! - gave awful amounts of resistance. I finally wrestled it in enough to the point where I thought I'd have the correct chainline (a bit was still sticking out). I put in the BB, installed the right side (recessed slightly into the shell), torqued it up to spec, and was pleased with myself.

But then I torqued up the crank, and the chainline shrunk. (Yeah, duh, right?) The spider in fact no longer cleared the frame. I pulled the crank and went to re-adjust the rings to fix the problem. Now I can pull out the left side, which had given so much resistance previously, though there is a bit of damage to the ring from dealing with the bad old threads in the frame. (I didn't cross-thread it.) But the right side is stuck. I murder my Phil Wood consumer BB tool trying to get it out and still fail to do so.

So here I am, with a bike that is complete except for the BB/crankset, with funky fouled up 26 tpi threads and a Phil Wood ring stuck too far into the right side of the bike. I am sitting here having broken all of my BB tools and with a new crankset and bottom bracket on my carpet, feeling like an incompetent toddler.

My feeling is, if I can fetch that ring from the shell, that I'll need to do something about the lousy old threads in the BB shell to avoid repeating this circus. Likely that'll mean re-tapping the shell to 24 tpi at the LBS and starting again with a fresh pair of Phil rings.

I would really like to give this bike one more hurrah if possible until the next major breakdown, at which point I'll move on and get a new bike.

Thoughts?
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Old 12-18-10, 10:15 PM
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Time to get a modern bike.
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Old 12-19-10, 12:07 AM
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Originally Posted by FLYcrash
Thoughts?
Forget threads. Track down a "threadless" bottom bracket like this YST unit: https://www.biketoolsetc.com/index.cg...=YS-BB99368110

Or consider tracking down a replacement. Raleigh 3-speeds aren't that rare, are they?
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Old 12-19-10, 09:37 AM
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Hi operator,

How did I know you would say that? It's good to hear from you. Parting out the Raleigh and putting together a new bike certainly has come to mind. I can't quite bear to kill the old bike yet, though.

Hi Jeff,

Thanks much for bringing up the threadless BBs. I hadn't heard about them. (I haven't been working on bikes with as much zeal lately, with too much work and some other hobbies competing for my time, so maybe they were introduced in the past year or two while I wasn't paying attention.) I also read about a similar product from Velo Orange. OTOH, now I have a brand new Phil Wood BB staring at me...

Once I get the stuck ring out of the shell, I'll decide what to do and bump with an update.
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Old 12-19-10, 10:13 AM
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Here's a fixed-cup removal technique that many folks have found useful. Scroll down the page to "Fixed Cup Tools".

https://www.sheldonbrown.com/tooltips/bbcups.html

Regards,
Bob P.
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Old 12-19-10, 10:51 AM
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1)You still have enough metal to re thread the BB shell Italian..

You should be able to find a thin wall 6 point socket to engage the hex on your phil spline tool.

and ... as pointed out there are BB assembliess that Bypass the threads
the YST, mentioned , and one from Velo Orange, in MD..

and putting a Swiss Schlumpf Mountain drive Crankset
on will replace whole crankset including BB as its part of the right side,
and it kicks down to turn a 3 speed into a 6 speed that can climb the Alps
by reusing the 3 speeds in a lower range..
when in low range the crank arms turn faster than the chainring
reduction geared thru a planetary gear set.
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Old 12-19-10, 11:27 AM
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Originally Posted by fietsbob
..... putting a Swiss Schlumpf Mountain drive Crankset on will replace whole crankset including BB as its part of the right side.
Now there's a good thought. Replace a very expensive (but already paid for) Phil Wood bottom bracket with a vastly more expensive system on a 36 year old somewhat damage frame that was of only modest quality when brand new.
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Old 12-19-10, 02:30 PM
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Originally Posted by operator
Time to get a modern bike.
Eh, don't be such a quitter, operator. Bikes like that Sports were built to last a lifetime or longer.

OP: you could use a threadless cartridge like to one Velo-Orange offers. Sell the Phil to recoup some of your costs.
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Old 12-19-10, 03:39 PM
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One comment fietsbob made does bear repeating, once you manage to get the stuck PW ring out, the shell could be reamed and retapped to Italian threads. PW, of course, does make Italian cups so you could even salvage most of your investment in their bottom bracket.
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Old 12-19-10, 04:16 PM
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I hear that Freeze-Off is the shniznitz for this kind of problem.
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Old 12-20-10, 02:00 AM
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Originally Posted by Jeff Wills
Forget threads. Track down a "threadless" bottom bracket like this YST unit: https://www.biketoolsetc.com/index.cg...=YS-BB99368110
Oh wow, a cheap one! I coughed up $90 for VO job.

Prolly a bit lighter, though... but it was a pain to sand off the ugly anodising and paint it black : /
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Old 12-20-10, 09:09 AM
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Originally Posted by Kimmo
Oh wow, a cheap one! I coughed up $90 for VO job.

Prolly a bit lighter, though... but it was a pain to sand off the ugly anodising and paint it black : /
That was $90 well spent. The YST bottom brackets have a very poor reputation for durability.
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Old 12-21-10, 03:02 AM
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As a group following the law of large-numbers (average), the YST does have variable quality. I've seen some with loose-bearings out of the box. However, the majority of them will be OK, so it depends upon the particular sample of 1 that you receive.

The other major variable is installation competence. The YST requires a 45-degree bevel to be cut on the shell to centre the BB (same as Mavic). However, this tool IS NOT very common in shops and I've seen many of them installed without the necessary machining. This causes the bearings to be installed off-centre and non-parallel between the two sides; leading to quick wear and noise issues. So... in the end, if you find a shop qualified to install Mavic & YST BBs, then it would be a good deal. Otherwise, the VO BB is the way to go.

Necessary tool:
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Old 01-15-11, 05:46 PM
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Good news! I successfully managed to get my new BB into the bike:

(1) Bought a new Phil Wood consumer BB tool. The stuck ring on the right side still wouldn't budge, even with 500-600 in-lb. of torque.
(2) Bought a propane blowtorch.
(3) Heated the right ring with the blowtorch until the garbage in there started smoking, which allowed removal of the ring (while still hot) with minimal torque. Whew!
(4) Cleaned up the threads in the shell with a brass wire wheel on my Proxxon, a manual brass brush, and solvent with paper towels.
(5) Worked the left ring into the shell. The left side threads really needed chasing, which unfortunately isn't feasible for 26 tpi threads. By working the ring back and forth like a tap and taking it out periodically to clean out the powdered metal, the ring's and shell's threads were able to reach a compromise in which the ring's threads were flattened a little and the shell's threads were deepened a little. This still took a lot of torque.
(6) Applied new Loctite and installed the BB. Brought the torque up to spec from the right hand side, which went in very freely.
(7) Installed the crank without any complications.

Hooray! I'm glad to have my bike back with minimal cash outlay beyond the parts I'd already purchased. The take-home lessons for me are to be better about cleaning threads, to avoid forcing fasteners, and to stop worrying and love the blowtorch.
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Old 01-15-11, 11:41 PM
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Originally Posted by FLYcrash
The left side threads really needed chasing, which unfortunately isn't feasible for 26 tpi threads.
It's perfectly feasible if you have an old set of 26tpi cups.

If you think about it, it's far from impossible to make anything bolt-shaped tap-shaped... Dremel is your friend.



I've used this trick a few times (not on anything as large as a BB, although I've only used it to make threads from scratch rather than merely chasing existing threads)... I've never seen this tip offered by anyone but myself, but it's so obvious it can't be original.

You can go the whole hog and grind a taper as well as cutting slots, but you should only need the slots for chasing.

Last edited by Kimmo; 01-15-11 at 11:48 PM.
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Old 01-16-11, 11:30 AM
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Yes, fair enough. I've heard this one before, possibly from you. The old cups from the bike were worn and dirty enough that I didn't want to do this, and I didn't have any others. What I did appeared to give a good result in any case.
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