I've seen some bike maintenance books recommend Teflon tape on sealed BB threads -- but some people here say just to grease it and thats enough. So what's the call? I'm putting a new Sugino BB on my conversion and trying to decide if I should just tape it up or grease. Any cons to putting the tape on vs. grease?

tape will never seize, i'd guess. i only ever used that stuff for stretching my ears though, haha. ()

I've only ever used grease on 5 different frames (some new, some vintage, MTB and road--all SS and fixed). Never had a single BB seize. I'd probably only use the tape if something was a little stripped, in order to get a better fit.

I, too, use just a teeny tiny bit of grease on the spindle and have been absolutely fine.

I think we're talking about actually threading the BB into the frame. I haven't ever used teflon tape, you shouldn't really need it unless the threads are buggered.

Whoops. Can't trust my reading comprehension after a long night of riding.

I've never had good luck with tape; it always causes a creak after a few hundred miles. Just a liberal amount of grease has worked for me. If it's the waterproof variety, it should work as well as teflon tape.

Just make sure you overhaul the BB every so often, even moreso after wet and sloppy conditions, and you should be fine.

The tape can work, but you have to make sure that you don't end up with it between the outside face of the BB shell and the BB, which will lead to creaking eventually. This is assuming your BB shell has actually ever been faced, which is unlikely of course. Grease is completely fine and more than adequate for steel frames. For Al frames that get ridden in the wet there is some justification for using teflon tape instead, but I never do. Again, chasing and facing the BB shell is worth a mile of tape and a pound of grease.

sounds like grease should be enough (its a steel frame) hasn't been faced that I know of (at least not since I inherited it about 3 years ago) - its a '77-built frame so now is probably a good time to give the BB shell a good bit of attention.

For just putting a BB in and keeping it from seizing grease is fine. If your BB is making little creaking noises and isn't just completely trashed, putting teflon tape on the threads and greasing it and putting it back in sometimes helps.