SundayNiagara

Maybe you didn't see where Cannondale is now advocating the use of Loctite 609 on their bottom brackets. Go back through this thread and you'll find it.

Campag4life

Hilarious. Criticizing me when I have forgotten more about BB's than you ever even considered.
Press Fits are the dominant BB in the bike industry sold by every top mfr for their finest bikes. I know how to tame them and you don't. You should just go away.

popeye

I win.

rpenmanparker 

So I decided to live dangerously and buy the standard FSA PF30 bottom bracket for my new Chinese CF frame. I know I am risking the creak, but I am prepared to deal with it if/when it happens. Since I know that the Wheels Manufacturing Al PF30 assembly is a good solution if Loctite doesn't do the trick on the nylon one, I am prepared to take the risk. As an experimental scientist my entire career, this is right up my alley.

Here's the interesting thing. FSA's installation instructions do specify Loctite, but not the 609 retaining compound, rather the 243 oil-resistant threadlocker. That's fine with me, but there is so much about this whole thing I don't know, it couldn't hurt to ask about it. Anyone got any opinions about using the 243 instead of the 609? Should a primer be used with the 243 like recommended for the 609?

Thanks.

Racing Dan

If Loctite doesn't fix a creak it may not be the bearings or cups creaking in the BB shell. I have Gossamer crank in a FSA press-fit BB that creaked on the left crank down stroke, before 100 mi. Took it apart and realized it was assembled completely dry, with no grease between axel and bearings as seen in the youtube assembly video. Greased the axle with some heavy boat trailer grease and the creaking went away.

johnyguy

Mine had alot of grease as well and it did not prevented creak how about you?

Robius

I've done about 1000km and no creaking yet.

loimpact

Figured I'd post an update.........

Things are still very quiet. I've recently heard a 'tick' but not sure it's BB. I heard it on a 14% climb that was absolute murder & on my 34/25 combo I was fighting with full grit in my teeth. When I got out of the saddle I heard a tick on right pedal downstroke probably 6-7 o'clock. The faster I got, it went away so not sure it's BB. My saddle is a known 'ticker' so it could be there but lots of hard rides lately & barely enough energy to wipe the chain down & put the bike away much less chase a tick.

I also did pull the non-DS crank and confirmed that the wavy-washer preload is what gives me the less-than-free spinning cranks. There are no spacers left to remove & wavy washer's about 70% compressed which is totally acceptable to me so I'm good with it.

If I get the time I'll probably do a full cleaning of my drive train which will include regreasing cranks again, chainring bolts, contact areas, etc. to maybe chase the 'tick' and also put some light lube on the seat to see if the bike goes completely silent but nevertheless.....the creaks I had 2 weeks ago are definitely gone!

Campag4life

Great news. With a solid approach like you employed...Wheel Mfg PF30 BB and Loctite, a Press Fit BB can be tamed for sure as they are really quite simple. By contrast a std. PF30 with separately pressed in BB30 cartridge bearings and no Loctite is pretty sure fire to creak...if not right off within 1-2K miles and hence all the flap on the internet about PF30..and there are a lot of versions out there.
You should be good moving forward. Sounds like your PF30 cups with integrated bearings are well aligned as well which is also good news and reflective of your assembly practice of installing the crank before letting the Loctite set up. Well done.

Igualmente

Dumb question: is a creaking PF30 (on a carbon frame) prone to some kind of earlier BB failure than a non-creaking (i.e. loc'd-tite) PF30. Just wondering if I continue to ignore my creaky PF30 or should really get to dealing with it because it is the sound of a shorter frame life. I don't really care to deal with it for any other reason.

johnyguy

Thanks for the update!
My brand new bike started to creak after 80miles light rides. So I ordered a wheels mgf bracket so I can fix it, if it's not going to work I may get an adapter to be able to use shimano 24mm bottom bracket and maybe use high straight loctite to lock it in to place ,not the medium one we use.

Now I'm debating what to use to extract the bearings since I don't want to knock it out from the frame .

So I been looking for a tool to extract the bearings and there is not much available, this is one example :

wheelsmfg.com/6806-30mm-sealed-bearing-extractor.html

this one is require a tap so I may just going to make my own extractor tool made out of a threaded rod a big size socket and a some home made little part to get behind the bearings to be able to pull them with a thread in the middle.

Will post the result and some pictures how did it go if any one know a tool to extract the bearings without taping them let me know.

rpenmanparker 

Park makes a tool for knocking out the bearings properly and safely. If it is okay with Park, it is okay with me. BBT-30.3

Johnyguy, tell us why you don't want to tap out the bearings. I don't mean with a screwdriver, but with a specifically designed for the job tool. You won't hurt your carbon frame.

johnyguy

its an alu frame , well i guess iam overthinking i just dont want to create a clearance in the frame .....

rpenmanparker 

The Park tool has mechanism for aligning the punch so that it pushes straight out.

dr_lha

Yep, that Park Tool is a solid piece of kit and makes the whole uninstall/install (with the addition of a bearing press), damn easy.

johnyguy

OK I'm gonna give it a go

loimpact

A couple of updates............

1.) I had developed a 6 o'clock drive-side "tick" during hard efforts shortly after install of the Wheels Mfg BB......HOWEVER......I have since done a thorough bike cleaning which included pulling the cranks and completely cleaning out the grease (which really wasn't too old but I'd had a heavy rain ride so I like to go thru the bike after bad rain) and I can say that after reassembly, and a couple thousand miles.....she's silent. I'm no sure where the tick was and don't care at this point......I can hammer up climbs endlessly in pure silence......

2.) A (imho) VERY exciting new development is Wheels Mfg new THREADED PF30 kit................. PF30 Threaded ABEC-3 BB (Black) I really like this idea!! I can only hope that this has the potential to end PF30 issues for good. The only problem I see going forward is that this BB will surely test the concentric tolerance of mfgrs bores in the BB shell.

I see they don't appear to approve of any retaining compounds during installation. (With one side "pressed" and the other "threaded in", I could see why but would love to hear Campag's opinion)

I also don't *THINK* the bearings are "captured" on this setup which could be good or bad, depending on what you like. (I'll try to remember to contact them to find out for sure & report back here, but as best I an see, they don't look captured in the pics.

Lazyass

Very interesting. Simple, yet genius. But they have different ones. ABEC-3, Angular contact, hybrid. No clue what those are. *edit* Nevermind. I guess those are different kinds of bearings.

Campag4life

As the Voice of the Industry, I will start with credit. Credit Wheel Mfg's attempt to move the ball forward to 'try' and create a creak-less BB for PF30, the latter being the most problematic of all the BB's because it is in effect a 'sandwich' of metal (bearings) plastic (bushing) and carbon (BB shell) all relying on press fit = bad design. So, Praxis and now Wheel Mfg have stepped up with their similar solutions...only the Wheel Mfg relies more on lateral interference than Praxis which is a circumferential expanding collet with more minimum lateral interference albeit there is lateral interference.

Are any of these as simple or effective as our old friend BSA aka English Threaded with outboard threaded cups aka Shimano BB with Shimano crank...about as bulletproof a combo ever created? NO.

Both Praxis and Wheel Mfg's solution which vastly improving upon PF30, leave something to be desired aka Praxis now known tendency to creak also in the case of BB30 with alloy cup on alloy sleeve interface...said to be quieted by Loctite which Praxis does NOT spec btw...but where does the Praxis PF30 stand which has a tolerance sensitive lateral torque lock out? Dodgy...because it is still a sandwich although I will stop short of calling it a $h!t sandwich but lets say its a sandwich that doesn't taste very good.

So what about the new Wheel Mfg design and btw there are other imitators out there that may in fact have come before? A simpler approach to the radially expanding Praxis collet sleeve...but also replete with its own issues. Where's the beef?..or rather what's the beef?
The beef is..one side is pressed in...sleeve right into carbon shell...the latter with a fair amount of tolerance...alloy on carbon and no plastic sleeve as buffer...and then...and this is bit circumspect, the NDS cup gets threaded in and of course the OD tolerance has to be carefully underneath the ID tolerance of the bike BB carbon shell and the whole kit relies on lateral interference to keep it quiet. No bonding and grease or Teflon paste between the BB and carbon shell ID.

So to me, this a flawed design as well which can't possibly work as well as an English threaded BB because weight bearing is on two sides of a carbon bore that have a lubricant between them and two halves of the Wheel Mfg. BB. No good.

Will it work? Sure? If I owned a Sworks Tarmac or Roubaix with 46mm ID carbon shell would I install the Wheel Mfg solution? No. How about Praxis? Probably not or would try to avoid it? Stick with PF30 parts? A pretty awful design? Best approach? Don't own a bike with PF30...BB30 is much easier to tame and if you want to really tame BB30, you can regress it to BSA aka English threaded by Epoxying in a threaded sleeve made by Sram or C-bear or others.
PF30 just plain sucks and any solution is a bandaid to an ill fated design that should have never been released. Specialized after many seasons of trying to make it work finally realized this...much too long...and stopping making their narrow version of PF30 in 2015. BB30 is better and even that isn't without challenge as many know but with Loctite, it tends to be pretty reliable. PF30? Not so much and shame on the industry for perpetrating sure a fragile design.

PS: some students of bike design have heard about a new 30mm crank solution that is threaded and some are hopeful this becomes a new standard. One can only hope but there are roadblocks to achieving a uniform standard when bike companies drive a wedge into convention by trying to create market diversity to sell their individual product. This dynamic occurs with great risk to the consumer of course as many of us have learned that departure from tried and true conventions can have a huge cost to reliability aka creaking with virtually no perceivable improvement in performance over a design that has stood the test of time aka English threaded. In summary, caveat emptor.

Lazyass

As the self- proclaimed "Voice of the Industry", the same one who told me I was wrong for following the instructions from FSA, I would think you would have looked closer at the adapter and read the install instructions. Just because one side is pressed in and the other is threaded doesn't mean they have different tolerances. They are actually both "pressed" in, you just do it in two different ways. The center sleeve doesn't even touch the inside of the BB shell. The parts of both sides that actually press into the shell look the exact same to me.

Campag4life

I would bother responding to you technically even though we are worlds apart, but you would only continue to misinterpret what I write. So consider that I didn't write the above for your benefit but rather for others with a better grasp...lol.

Lazyass

I didn't post a link, loimpact did. I posted a pic of the BB30 adapter.

rpenmanparker 

Why don't the pictures in loimpact's link and in your post match. He shows inboard bearings while you are showing outboard bearings. I can't see what the bearing diameters are, but they are most likely 24 mm. The adapter is probably for Shimano cranks in a PF30 shell. But if the diameter is 30 mm, that would be an adapter for an FSA BB386 EVO crank in a PF30 shell. Must be the former, because I have never been able to find latter.

rpenmanparker 

Right. I realized that a few moments ago and corrected my post.

rpenmanparker 

BTW, Lasyass, you are exactly right about both sides being pressed in. Just because you don't need a bearing press to do the job, doesn't mean the second side isn't being pressed in. The bearing press is essentially integral to the adapter. I imagine you could use the threaded sleeve to press both sides in at the same time if you had two of the 16-slot oversize wrenches. Providing the sleeves are long enough for the threads to engage before the first side is even pressed in.