Good News, Bad News, and Weird News
Okay, from the top and in order:
My '74 Raleigh Professional is now being built! I've overhauled the Nuovo Record hubs, and trued the AVA rims. They now spin like a record and track like a bounty hunter. I had to put a 2mm spacer behind the freewheel, a 13-23 Regina Oro unit, because I really didn't have clearance for the NR derailleur. I suppose I *should* have re-dished the wheel slightly, but this is a quick fix and I only lose 1 thread of engagement. Overall, the bike is building up nicely and I think I'm going to be awfully happy with it.
The bad news is that I think I got rooked by the seller. I'd originally purchased just the bare frame. But after thinking about it for a week or so, I realized that I wanted to keep the bike as original as possible, so I struck a deal for the rest of the parts for... well, and additional fee. He'd turn a tidy profit, and save himself the hassle of cleaning the parts and going through FeeBay.
Now, here's where it gets weird. I was working on it today, and when I got to the engine room, everything went totally pear-shaped. I had politely declined the bottom bracket, because I already had a T.A. BB from a Carlton that I knew would fit the bike: 68mm shell, ISO threading, and all indications pointed to it being ISO tapered. But NOTHING FITS.
The cups thread in nicely, so I'm well in there. But there's an issue in that I don't think I'm getting full extension of the spindle outside the cups, and the NDS cup really doesn't thread in all the way before it bottoms out against the bearings. I used 11 loose 1/4" balls in each side-- does the T.A. BB take 3/16" bearings instead?
Furthermore, although the NDS crankarm looks to be a good fit, the drive-side doesn't. It only wants to get between a third and halfway up the taper before things get pretty tight. Did Campy use two different tapers on their crankarms, or did the seller pull a fast one on me and give me two different crankarms from two different cranksets? Did T.A. use two different tapers on the spindle?
What the tapdancing green **** is going on here?