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Italian Threaded BB's loosening themselves?

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Italian Threaded BB's loosening themselves?

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Old 05-22-06, 01:02 PM
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Italian Threaded BB's loosening themselves?

Do Italian threaded BB's tend to work themselves loose faster due to the threading?

I was doing the Montauk Century yesterday and looked down and noticed my bottom bracket had worked itself loose. Of course I didn't bring a crank puller or a bottom bracket tool with me so I had to sort of baby it for 40 miles till I found a bike shop. I must have not tightened it down well when I first assembled the bike a few weeks ago but I've never seen this happen before.
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Old 05-22-06, 01:07 PM
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I have heard of this but it has yet to happen to me. I do use a tourque wrench to tighten my BB and there is an incredible amount of force putting one of those in.
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Old 05-22-06, 01:17 PM
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happened to me twice before i took the time to apply the proper tools to the job and really cranked it down.
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Old 05-22-06, 01:40 PM
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Those wacky italians!
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Old 05-22-06, 02:51 PM
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you might have better luck asking this in the bicycle mechanics forum
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Old 05-22-06, 02:57 PM
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the left side, fixed cup on italian BBs is right threaded, which means when you pedal, you're applying a forward, unscrewing force to it.

they tend to come loose with usage. use loc-tite on italian left cups.

english threaded BBs fixed this by reversing the threading on the left side. the pedaling motion pushes both sides tighter.
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Old 05-22-06, 03:48 PM
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yea. old school italian threading is stupid.
as brunning said, it works itself off.
So what I do on the fixed cup side is use locktite.
also, go to your LBS, they have a tool that allows you to lock the wrench so it doesn't slip. From that they can use a mallet to really reef on the cup so its for sure not going to work itself loose.

sorry for my craptastic explanation. but yea, I totally know what your talking about. Just bring it to a competent LBS and they'll make sure it won't unthread itself.;
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Old 05-22-06, 03:56 PM
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Mmmhmm. happens. My campagnolo one used to unscrew a lot. Eventually i got tired of stopping to screw it in by hand.

(big) +1 for the loctite. Enough to hold it in, but you can still wrench it out when the time comes..
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Old 05-22-06, 08:51 PM
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I had the same problem on my Bianchi but curiously it was the drive side cup that worked free all the time. Loctite applied and no more problem.
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Old 05-22-06, 08:52 PM
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yea, it would be the driveside.
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Old 05-22-06, 09:32 PM
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the fact that i havec a campy bb on a bianchi and this has never happened to me makes me nervous. ah, well.
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Old 05-23-06, 07:40 AM
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Originally Posted by humancongereel
the fact that i havec a campy bb on a bianchi and this has never happened to me makes me nervous. ah, well.
That's likely because Bianchi has used english treading since sometime in the 80's give or take a couple of years...
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Old 05-23-06, 11:15 AM
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Originally Posted by brunning
the left side, fixed cup on italian BBs is right threaded, which means when you pedal, you're applying a forward, unscrewing force to it.

they tend to come loose with usage. use loc-tite on italian left cups.

english threaded BBs fixed this by reversing the threading on the left side. the pedaling motion pushes both sides tighter.
would a left side drivetrain alievate the unscrewing? would it cause more issues?
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Old 05-23-06, 11:20 AM
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The drive side on my Bianchi started unthreading after I switched to a sealed BB. Blue loctite has mostly been working. I noticed it was a few mm out after several hundred miles a few days ago. I need to be switching over to a campy taper BB soon anyways, so hopefully that puts it right again... I think it might have been partially user error, maybe stripping the threads a bit, since I never had problems before putting the sealed Shimano in...

For whatever that's worth...
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Old 05-23-06, 01:06 PM
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Originally Posted by Ready to Ruck
would a left side drivetrain alievate the unscrewing? would it cause more issues?
If you only pedal backwards, it will prevent the non-drive side from unscrewing. But then the non-drive side would unscrew.

What side the chain is on makes no difference.
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