Has anyone installed a Miche bottom bracket here? I'm wondering if I should use grease or locktite on the threads...

Anyone?

-Robb

You're probably fine just using grease. After a few hundred miles check to make sure everything is tight. If you get a lot of slippage then I'd consider locktite.

loctite or teflon plumbing tape only if the drive side is right hand thread (i.e. italian thread) and then only on the drive side. Otherwise grease all threads.

Is your Italian made Miche BB Italian threaded

If you don't know what you are doing take it to the LBS. It shouldn't cost more than $20.

Avoid the drama.

This is a "grease or locktite" question, not a "what's a bottom bracket" question. It would appear to me the OP has a working knowledge of what he's doing.

Why have I seen 3 posts today where your only advice is to take it to the LBS?

If I took my bike to the LBS every time I wanted a bolt tightened, I'd be completely clueless as to how to work on my bike. How about some encouragement for learning?

Touche.

Well then, how about going to the LL (local library) and checking out a bike mech book. Serious.

...or post in the Bicycle Mechanics Forum. That's what it's there for.

I think somebody needs a nap.

Edit: For the OP, grease is fine on the bb threads. Theres not a lot of torque trying to unscrew the bb as it is, and even greased threads on a tight bottom bracket are hard to remove with that stupid spline tool. I like to use anti-seize on the bb since you have 2 different metals.

grease the threads and check it ever so often to make sure its not loose

[QUOTE=sivat]Theres not a lot of torque trying to unscrew the bb as it is,QUOTE]

Has anyone establish if the drive side is right or left handed? If RH, there is ample torque to drive the cup loose. Is this adding any drama?

[QUOTE=poopncow]The only torque trying to unscrew the cups should be coming from the shell trying to spin in the cups. The only way for the shell to spin is through the friction between the spindle, bearing and shell. If the bearings are high quality (which I would imagine they are in a miche bb) and in good shape, there shouldn't be very much torque there. Or am I missing something?

What I would do is use a TOKEN 102 BB instead of the miche one. Im assuming you are using miche cranks. The TOken 102 iso fits perfet with the miche cranks and is even smoother than the campy record BB (road ok? 102 mms)

My recomendation is based in the fact that the miche BB tends to get lose sort of OFTEN (do not happend to everybody OK?), the token as the campy sealed BB it will stay there forever and ever only if u use teflon. Besides Token's BBs are cheaper than campys and have the same quality. Other thing is that the miche BB is sort of ugly, i mean the whole trak set is awesomly nice but the BB hehehe...

nites..

Last I checked, hunterrb works at a bike shop.

Rob - Have Brian look over your shoulder during the install. He did a Miche BB for me, and ended up putting some Loctite on the driveside threads (as another poster already suggested).

If you don't, the driveside cup will have a tendency to screw itself further into the frame.

[QUOTE=sivat]Not exactly, there are other harder to explain forces involved....but they are there, and they will loosen the cups unless a certain preload is applied.

Excess my dwebbness, but is there a lip/flange on the drive side of these Miche BB?

[QUOTE=poopncow]According to the picture on business cycles, there isn't a lip, but the 2 cups should both be pressing against the shell, thus, under load and elastic deformation.

Sivat -
the threading on an english bb is LH on the drive side. therefore lefty tighty & righty loosey
(the convention is righty tighty lefty loosey on right hand threads)
the crank on the drive side is spinning in a right handed manner,
the friction between the spindle and the loose cups will drive the cup in a right handed direction. WHich means that the drive side cup on an english threaded BB should be constantly being driven LOOSE. But this is not the case,
However, drive side cups come loose on Italian threaded and other BB's that have right hand threads on the drive side.
The force which spins lipless english drive side cups in and loosen italian drive side cups is NOT the spinning of the spindle, but the churning of the spindle.
We spin the spindle thru a CRANK, the crank puts a side load on the spindle and the side load changes in direction like the arms on a clock. In ways that are even harder to explain properly, it is this churning motion that causes the need for LH threads on drive side cups and left side pedals

well, when i got my miche stuff i started with the cheapo track version which is just a spindle, bearings and two cups -no lockrings- and i found it to be pretty crappy. that oen needed a little adapter to screw the cups in too. i upgraded to the more traditional style miche and it installs like any other bb. so, i guess i'd need to know which bb you're using.

Thanks for the back, heh. How's PA treating you?

btw we have a Sprint Club in the works here in the 'nati. we meet every sunday and race our track bikes down at Longworth. PM me your email and i'll put you on the list if you would like....



We settled on teflon tape and grease for the installation. This BB is going into a single speed bike, not a fixed gear. I figured there will be a lot less strain on the cups without the added backpressure of a fixed setup..any thoughts?

Interestingly, Phil bb's are installed using only the locking compound that they include with the kit (as per instructions). They also have floating cups similar to the miche setup. thoughts on this?

-Robb

I installed one in an english threaded bottom bracket this spring. It's on #3502 in my sig below. The crankset is a Miche Primato. I used never-sieze on the threads and loctite 248 inside the cups where they contact the bb cartridge. No slippage yet. As has been noted in other threads on this and other forums, the 107 Miche BB does not give you a 42mm chainline unless you adjust it over to the left a few mm. When this one is ready to be replaced, I will probably use a 102 Campy.

I'm an engineer, so I know how it works. I can even derive the equations for it. I still believe that, if installed correctly, grease is the only thing needed. There is nothing wrong with using loctite for a bit of extra protection, except that you're more likely to strip the splines of the cups since there is usually only 2-3mm of engagement and the wrench handle is at least 25mm away from the plane of engagement. By the way, pedals are threaded so that they are actually loosened by the spinning of the cranks. The idea being that, in the early days of fixed gears, if the pedal bearings froze, the pedals would unscrew instead of breaking the foot.

EDIT: It occured to me that we may be arguing over apples and oranges. I was considering a sealed cartridge bb (which is what the new miche bbs shown on businesscycles are), where the cups serve a different purpose than loose bearing brackets, which I believe you might be talking about since the cups on those cannot be tightened enough to really keep them in place since they are part of the bearing race.