Ok, I am sure this has been covered before, but I have not found a thread that would help me. If I am mistaken, I am sorry

I have a mid to late 80's Bianchi SS Sport Piaggio Steel frame. The bike has been taken all the way down, and I am looking to paint/restore it. I am going to get paint custom mixed, and decals custom made. It should be a really fun restoration.

The problem.

The bottom bracket is a cheap square tapper and it is stuck. The drive and non drive side are not coming out. I do not know what to do short of destroying it. I have used the largest wrench and hammer I can without damaging it, and I have been nervous of heat because of the brazing (I don't know if this is really a valid concern). There has been a bunch of penetrating oil sprayed into the bb, and nothing has worked...

Any ideas?

That bike is made in japan i believe, at least the tubing is ishiwata> So i'll assume the bike has an english BB.

Are u sure you are turning the cups the right way???

Did you take the lock ring from the non drive side cup???

No idea what tools are you using or what BB cups that bike has, do you have the right tolls to do the job?? (picture?)

The times I got a glued and a frozen cup in a frame, what i did was put the tool in place using a quick release, then put the frame over a vice so the vice kept the tool really tight and used the frame to torque the thing out.

What you can do is to take the wheels out, just leave the saddle in place and seat the bike in the floor against the rear end and the saddle, that will give you more torque because you will be pushing down from above with your weight.

Another thing that always work is to get a big ass pipe wrench to crank the cups out, in case you need more torque just find a larger pipe, put it at the end put all your weight over it (kick it carefully) or even just hammer the pipe down with all you got. Got success doing this aswell.

Good luck.

Thank you for the info, The frame was made in Japan, and I am going the right way, the non drive side with the locking (and yes, I removed the lock ring ) is setup for a pin spanner, which I broke on it, and the drive side just has a set of flats, at 35mm. The frame was bought on ebay for, get ready, $60 shipped, and fits my wife very nicely. We are going to restore it, though with campy and not shimano, but the BB is being a real problem. I was hoping to save the cups (it is a cup style bb, and not the cartridge style) because I like the way they look, but....

This is the first bottom bracket that has given me this many problems. The narrow flats are making it really hard to grab a hold of the drive side, and the nondrive side has nothing to grab onto, because of the threads.

PB Blaster is generally thought of as one of the best for dealing with corrosion - spray that first, then tap both cups sharply to help it penetrate.

There are two ways to approach this. If you can find someone with a tool that will fit your fixed cup flats then try that first by using the bb spindle and nut plus washers, as shown below (credit to Miamijim for 2nd pic)





The other option is to grab the threads on the adjustable cup with a pipe wrench or large vise grips or ideally a good machinist's vise. You can grind some flats on it to help.

A Sport SS? Is there a tubing decal anywhere? I can't recall if this is a Chromly or Hiten frame. $60 shipped sounds reasonable since shipping was likely $30 or so.

The Sport SS model was the first model above the recreational bikes. It was a decent machine but I am not sure I would go wild with custom paint.

As for the BB cups... Having the special tools is a must if you don't want to destroy anything. If you are planning to reuse that BB you can leave the fixed cup (drive side) in and just mask it. If you don't intended to reuse the BB take it to a shop and have them remove it.

If yuo have the lockring off you might be able to get the adjustable (non drive side) off with a good pair of channel locks, if you are not reusing it.

This thread is full of useful information. https://www.sheldonbrown.com/tooltips/bbcups.html

This looks like a good method, if you have the correct tool. Just remember ona English BB the Fixed cup turns clockwise (to the right) to loosen and the adjustable cup turns counterclockwise (to the left)

I have used a similar method but with a plastic tube and with cooper tubes and a washer at the end. Works pretty good.

I looked over the frame some more, and tried to find out if it really is a sport SS, I am not sure it is. It may have been one of their "recreational bikes", but It is a nice bike none the less. The paint will be cheap, around $45 or so, plus the parts/wheels/seat the bike is going to come in under $800, which I feel is a fair price for a good bike.

As far as the bottom bracket goes, The non-drive side came out. It just took some time with the penetrating oil, and a little fineness with leather and vice grips. The bearings on the non-drive side are find, but the race on the spindle is pitted and rusty, and so are the bearings. It is looking like the cup is going to be pitted too, correct? If that is the case, I need to get the cup out. It is not coming out, I have used the method of the bolt and nut with washers, and nothing. I am open for ideas here, I will give anything a shot

if it is a welded(not brazed) frame try heat.

if all else fails and the BB is shot you can even weld onto the cup with something substantial to make a handle

did you hit the fixed cup wrench with a hammer after using penetrating oil ??

PB Blaster or Kroil are the only spray-on penetrating-oils that actually works. On one difficult seatpost, I had bent the seat-rails from trying to twist it out. Sprayed PB Blaster on it and left it overnight. By morning, it had loosened up the corrosion so much that the seatpost had slid down into the seat-tube all the way by itself!

As for the BB fixed-cup, Sheldon Brown's giant bolt & nut works great. Only change I would make is to place a star lockwasher on both sides of the cup. Improves grip significantly.

Most common problem is applying enough torque to the cup. Even with a stand, it's difficult to keep the frame from moving around. I find clamping the downtube as close to the BB as possible in V-blocks in a vise works really well. Then use an automotive 18" breaker-bar with 1/2" drive socket. Add a 4-foot extension-pipe to the handle (twice as long as the one I have shone below). This will easily let you generate 400-lb*ft torque.


I prefer using a 1000 lb*ft impact wrench because it will work every single time without having to worry about damaging the frame by yanking on it every which way. On one particularly difficult frame, it stripped the threads out of the BB-shell. The cup came right out with a shiny spiral of stripped threads on top! Should've set the wrench for 1/2-power, 500-lb*ft should do the trick.

https://www.mytoolstore.com/ir/2135qti.jpg

You can take the frame over to a tire shop - They usually have the right sized socket and an impact wrench for the job...

You may have to destroy the cup - What I mean by this is I once had a stubborn cup that was impossible to get off due to the fact it was buggered up and offered no point for leverage - I took it to a welding shop and they just spot welded a chunk of metal to it and twisted it off...

I have used the PB blaster and hammer, I have not thought about the impact gun... I have also used a 5.5' pipe extension on a half inch breaker, and broke the socket.... I think I will give the star washers a shot, with the pb blaster and hammer all at the same go.... This is almost fun...

Thank you for all the help to this point, if I have to weld something onto the cup, I will post pics :-)

I've seen cups that were taken out of frames with half their threads missing....and I presume that the remains of the missing threads were still stuck on the bottom bracket threads.....
Must have been really bad corrosion to have caused those, but just wanting to note that it can be really bad in there and "collateral damage" to cups and.or frame when removing these stuck cups can be expected.....

Chombi

I can't imagine a set of BB taps would particularly enjoy meeting the remains of hardened steel BB cups... Did you manage to salvage the frames on those occasions?

They were not on my bikes, just BB cups I encountered for sale in recent years. The owners selling them did admit that the threads were left behind in the frame when they removed the cups....I can't believe it could happen at first, but then I encountered a couple more cups for sale out there with the same exact thing going on and the different owners giving the same reason for the missing threads.

Chombi

I have tried everything, and it is still in there, I am going to set the frame aside for now, and return to it at a later date.... Thank you guys for all the help, I guess sometimes the rust just wins!

Does "everything" include finding someone (or a shop) with the right tool, or making one similar to Sheldon's suggestion? If you use a tool with a handle you need to brace the frame. When I managed a shop we pretty never failed to remove a fixed cup with the Stein Tool. We had a large Craftsman machinist's vise very solidly mounted, so just put the tool in the vise and turned the frame.

I do this a lot for people at the coop here.........it's much more common
since the advent of alloy frames with alloy BB shells.....they really get
welded in there by the electrolytic corrosion.

When you chase the threads there does not seem to be an issue. The
steel that is left is just pieces of the threads and mostly gets pushed out
of the way, rather than cut. Anyway, it works pretty well unless the
shell is ovalized at all............which also happens.

When it is all said and done, I saw an ad somewhere in this forum for a new bottom bracket designed for stripped shells or for shells that are unthreaded. I have never seen one myself, but might be worth looking into as you resolve this with increasingly more severe/larger tools.

There are several, including the Velo Orange threadless bottom bracket.

Had this problem on a 531db frame. Used the Sheldon big bolt method in combination with heat on the bolts and cup, not the BB shell. Applied PB Blaster while hot to let it penetrate and let it sit for 24 hrs. Placed the bolt in a bench vice and used the frame as my lever. Came right out. The bike was 37 years old with the BB installation at the factory.

The other day I decided to go after it again. I got the big bolt out, a hammer, and some very large wrenches. The cup is now out, and a Campy BB installed! No damage to the threads, but the cup is totally shot... I used liquid wrench as well. I think the penetrating oil from before had enough time to work its way in there.

Thank you everyone for your help!