Originally Posted by boom

Scrod, looks like I owe you an apology - tried removing the spacer from my GXP BB and it reassembled fine. Thanks for setting me (and others) straight.

I think I may have been misremembering how it actually happened at installation time back when I got it. I got the frame new and was anxious to get riding - the BB shell was never faced, and a shop I took it to for the headset installation told me I didn't need to worry about it. When I went to install the BB, it would bind up when I tightened the crank arm down all the way. I looked around for instructions and saw the junk about the spacers, but after installing spacers on each side, the chainline was obviously off. I took the spacer off the drive side, which corrected the chainline, and kept the spacer on the NDS, which removed the binding issue.

I've since had the shell faced but didn't think much of the spacer when I put it back together. However, now it seems to not bind without the spacer, so I would guess that the slightly narrower faced BB shell allowed the crank arm to seat fully without impacting the bearing seal.

Thanks again!