Originally Posted by
CerveloMad
Great advice as always Campag4life. All your instructions noted and will be implemented when the time comes. You have certainly been an immense help, thank you. Will post progress as things develop. I will still try the Warranty route, with a slight amount of trepidation, but if you don't ask you don't get as my father used to say!
Glad to help. Because of my background, I see the pitfalls with current BB's and so if I can contribute some advice to help out, I try to do so.
Bike companies are guilty of performing their beta testing on their customers. The evolution of installation practices for integrated BB's is unconscionable and transparent to those close to the industry. Its pretty obvious that the specification of epoxy and Loctite by large companies in the last couple of years is a response to all the customer complaints when bearings were installed without and would creak or work themselves out. So basically bike companies changed their installation practices because their original procedures were flawed. Excessive movement as in the case of the Scott with its smaller press fit bore is likely what results in its wear. A smaller diameter bore has greater stress than a larger PF30. But hard to know why the Foil BB in particular is so vulnerable. It may even be related to the type of carbon or layup...but probably tolerancing as well...or lack of tight BB I.D. tolerance and big side BB I.D. would accelerate wear. Adhesives would negate this...even if slip fit or even a slight clearance. A work in progress basically left to the consumer to sort out. Press fit bearing systems without adhesive with combination of side and vertical loading as in the case of a BB have little chance to be reliable...unless a lower power rider, low mileage bike and tight tolerances.
If you don't get any relief with Scott, don't sweat it. Epoxy and ride it and it will be OK. Keep in mind why using an epoxy bonding agent to keep the bushings in place is effective. Its because it is a natural adjunct and bonding agent to the matrix used in carbon fiber. The binding polymer in carbon fiber is often a thermoset resin such as epoxy, but other thermoset or thermoplastic polymers, such as polyester, vinyl ester or nylon are often used as well. So epoxy naturally bonds to the matrix of carbon fiber and bushings act as a mold of sorts. So when you epoxy plastic bushings in place using the crank as an alignment aid and why critical to install the crank before the epoxy sets up....and then you knock worn bushings out later to replace them, what is left is a nice round hole or line to line mold of the bushing O.D. created by the epoxy. So there is very little downside to a repaired carbon BB with press fit like BB91 or PF30.
Without adhesive, no chance and there will be more Foils with the same problem showing up here.
PS: for those that obtain a new frameset from Scott, or even own a Foil currently, I strongly suggest you adopt Specialized procedure for their narrow PF30 BB used on their flagship S-works bikes which specs the epoxy I referred to above if you want longer life out of your BB. Not doing this will simply let history repeat itself.
Here is a link to the Spesh procedure:
http://service.specialized.com/colla...G0338_revC.pdf
Note: Spesh does NOT spec epoxy for their BB30 because green Loctite
#640 is more effective for bonding bearings to alloy bores which are insert molded into the carbon shell unlike their S-works narrow PF30 bikes with virgin carbon 46mm BB shell I.D similar to 42mm OD BB shell used on the Foil.