New BB30 frame incompatible Campag BB

[Causidicus]

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[mattythemod]

Before you even seriously consider the option of OT, how do you even know that OT cups will fit the frame's strange spec BB shell?

Good point I dont know if it will fit ..... and after researching OT it also requires an investment in tools for the install ....

[bikerjulio]

Before you even seriously consider the option of OT, how do you even know that OT cups will fit the frame's strange spec BB shell?

The good news is that since OT uses a 30mm spindle, no adapter cups are needed. It is simply a BB30 system with spacers either side.

The bad news is that after spending $537 US at current Ribble prices for an OT crank, bearings & spacers, and special tool, OP still has the potentially creaky mistake of a BB30 system that Graeme so eloquently described.

When $22 will buy a set of trouble-free, solid PT threaded cups to fit the crank he already has.

[Svetty]

@bikerjulio: OK so we get that you don't like BB30! Unfortunately the OT has a BB30 frame he is enamored with so unless he's prepared to reject it he has to figure out his best option. It sounds as if the manufacturer is implying that the frame is compatible with OT bearings (otherwise these are of no more use than the PT ones). Unless he wants to install adaptors with the extra complexity, weight and additional interfaces this entails, the OT option seems the best of a bad job.

@ OT: Can you not just order a new frame, identical to the existing one but with a BSA BB?

[SuperDave]

Advice and opinions welcome ...Just treated myself to my dream $2500 frame with a custom paint job from a well known London based Shop and Bike brand , now the frame is BB30 at the time of ordering i advised them that i would be running an almost new 2012 Campag Carbon Power Torque Red n Black groupset and they even confirmed what BB30 cup size i would need .

My LBS fitted the cups to the frame and they dont sit flush against the BB shell even though they are against the lip of the BB Sleeve / collar appears there an 2 mm gap between the BB cups and the BB shell , now upon seeking advice from the frame maker they advised to " grind or file " down the cups a couple of mm`s so they would sit flush , my LBS mechanic / Owner was agasht at this suggestion and sought advice from VeloTech who are the official UK Campag service center his answer was unprintable on these pages , now i always thought that BB30 relied on a decent contact surface for the cups to sit against and grinding cups down defeats the objective of BB30 .

The frame maker has now come back to me admitted that the way there BB shell is made ( machined from a solid billet ) means Power Torque cups are not compatabile and is offering a Threaded insert so i can run standard BSA cups but that kinda defeats the object of having BB30 which was a selling point of the frame..... or at cost price the new Over Torque chainsets which are 11 speed / Ultra Torque chainsets which i belive only come in 11 speed Chorus or Record guises these days which is still another $400 to spend .

Am i being picky by rejecting the above solutions or any advice or feedback that i have not thought about .

The Campagnolo 42mm cups for BB30 frames require that the C-clips or E-clips used as the bearing seat with a BB30 crankset be removed. Felt Bicycles has a custom carbon BB shell in our premium frames that does not use C-clips or grooves in the shell, there is a bonded in sleeve for the bearings to rest against that cannot be removed. To use Campagnolo cranks the Campy cups need to be ground down just to the edge of the o-ring seat. I've done this on a couple dozen bikes without any creaking or loss of performance whatsoever. I suspect this would likely void the warranty of the BB and crankset from Campag however.

Just an anecdote FWIW.

-SD

[bikerjulio]

@bikerjulio: OK so we get that you don't like BB30! Unfortunately the OT has a BB30 frame he is enamored with so unless he's prepared to reject it he has to figure out his best option. It sounds as if the manufacturer is implying that the frame is compatible with OT bearings (otherwise these are of no more use than the PT ones). Unless he wants to install adaptors with the extra complexity, weight and additional interfaces this entails, the OT option seems the best of a bad job.

@ OT: Can you not just order a new frame, identical to the existing one but with a BSA BB?

So let's break this down.

I'm not the only one with a negative opinion of BB30. See Graeme. See also a gazillion threads going back about 10 years.

He was ALWAYS going to be using an adapter since he ordered a frame that that was incompatible with the crankset he had. For some bizarre reasoning that has not been revealed. Based on other posts I suspect that it's not based on an understanding of the issues involved.

He could spend $22 on a THREADED cup that would work with the FREE inserts offered by the seller to resolve this problem.

Or just ignore the advice given here in good faith.

[SuperDave]

You bought a frame with particular requirements, if the frame is not correct it is not "fit for purpose", hand it back and tell them to sort it out. Name and shame the builder.

I love the frameset to bits the shapes , the colours etc etc its goin to pain me to send it back BUT your quite right its not fit for purpose unless i upgrade to the new OverTorque chainset ( which they offered at cost price ) which i dont think is hardly fair or reasonable considering i was not aware of this to start with .

You seem fixated on doing a BB30 solution. Unless you've been living in a cave for the past 10 years you should be aware of the multiple threads over many years detailing BB30 problems. It was never a good system IMO. Additionally the OT is a long spindle system which you then propose to put into a short spindle BB. It will work but the inherent BB30 problems will still be there.

There was never anything wrong with threaded BB's.

Conversion of your frame to BSA will yield the most solid, reliable result. And all for the price of new cups, not a $600 crankset. What is the problem?

Threaded BBs creaked as much or more so than the latest crop of pressed in BB designs. Those creaking problems go back much further than 10 years.

Do integrated headset bearings "creak"?

With good design and good tolerance control the BB30 problems disappear.

-Dave

[wingguy]

There's really no difference in the Power-Torque cups to the Ultra-Torque cups in fitting. What they have supplied you is a BB shell which doesn't fit either. They need to lathe/line bore out the step in the BB tube which prevents the cups from being installed or to provide you what you paid for (BB with Campagnolo cup compatibility).

As for the logic in running PT cranks with a BB30 frame thats why Campag make PT BB30 cups

That's irrelevant. The benefit of BB30 is having a stiffer, lighter 30mm diameter axle in the cranks. If you haven't got that what's the point?

[mattythemod]

Advice and opinions welcome ...Just treated myself to my dream $2500 frame with a custom paint job from a well known London based Shop and Bike brand , now the frame is BB30 at the time of ordering i advised them that i would be running an almost new 2012 Campag Carbon Power Torque Red n Black groupset and they even confirmed what BB30 cup size i would need .

My LBS fitted the cups to the frame and they dont sit flush against the BB shell even though they are against the lip of the BB Sleeve / collar appears there an 2 mm gap between the BB cups and the BB shell , now upon seeking advice from the frame maker they advised to " grind or file " down the cups a couple of mm`s so they would sit flush , my LBS mechanic / Owner was agasht at this suggestion and sought advice from VeloTech who are the official UK Campag service center his answer was unprintable on these pages , now i always thought that BB30 relied on a decent contact surface for the cups to sit against and grinding cups down defeats the objective of BB30 .

The frame maker has now come back to me admitted that the way there BB shell is made ( machined from a solid billet ) means Power Torque cups are not compatabile and is offering a Threaded insert so i can run standard BSA cups but that kinda defeats the object of having BB30 which was a selling point of the frame..... or at cost price the new Over Torque chainsets which are 11 speed / Ultra Torque chainsets which i belive only come in 11 speed Chorus or Record guises these days which is still another $400 to spend .

Am i being picky by rejecting the above solutions or any advice or feedback that i have not thought about .

The Campagnolo 42mm cups for BB30 frames require that the C-clips or E-clips used as the bearing seat with a BB30 crankset be removed. Felt Bicycles has a custom carbon BB shell in our premium frames that does not use C-clips or grooves in the shell, there is a bonded in sleeve for the bearings to rest against that cannot be removed. To use Campagnolo cranks the Campy cups need to be ground down just to the edge of the o-ring seat. I've done this on a couple dozen bikes without any creaking or loss of performance whatsoever. I suspect this would likely void the warranty of the BB and crankset from Campag however.

Just an anecdote FWIW.

-SD

And this what the frame retailer is offering " grinded down cups "....despite them telling me that Campag BB30 Adaptors i would need to fit without modifaction and as pointed earlier in this thread by GFK he confirmed that it would void the warranty .

[mattythemod]

He was ALWAYS going to be using an adapter since he ordered a frame that that was incompatible with the crankset he had. For some bizarre reasoning that has not been revealed. Based on other posts I suspect that it's not based on an understanding of the issues involved.

Nothing bizzare about it Sir , your quite correct that i did not understand the issues involved as some would say i have been mis-sold/ mislead.The frame retailer confirmed the size of what Campag BB30 PT adaptors i would need no mention of there incompatbilty or need for a crude modification which would void warranty .

[Causidicus]

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[Wcl4]

Why can't you return the bike and have them remake it correctly? Can't you dispute it with CC company since you have email thread?

[Calnago]

I've followed this thread since it's original post, and when I read that the OP viewed the BB30 as a "selling feature" of the frame... I just thought... oh well.

But I just want to add a couple things:

1) I believe ANY pressfit design to date is inferior to the BSA threaded design. I've expressed this in other threads, but suffice to say the pressfit designs are there to make frame manufacturing easier, period. For the most part, the rest is marketing spin.

2) The OP unfortunately became a victim of less than accurate or informed information from the seller of the frame. Seems he was pretty clear on telling them what he wanted to use with it. He is not the frame builder. At some point you have to trust someone you believe is credible. The frame supplier gave the OP some misleading or blatantly incorrect info. Grinding the cups will indeed exacerbate the problem of the cups "walking" or creeping out of the frame. This was not an acceptable answer. They should eat it, and either refund the OP's his entire amount or fix the inherent design problems in the frame.

3) There was a statement made that threaded bottom brackets creak as much or more than the current crop of pressift bb's. I say BS to that. Simply not true imo. We'll just have to agree to disagree on that one.

4) Bikerjulio mentioned that Campy's new design does nothing to address the problems inherent in the pressfit BB's. This is absolutely correct. Rather, the new design is Campagnolo's response to the proliferation of these types of pressfit bottom brackets. Campagnolo does not make the frames. But they are forced to make components that will work with these frames. And hence... we have Overtorque. I haven't installed or even seen one yet, but am anxious to get my hands on one and install it and see how it goes.

5) In relation to the statement made that "With good design and good tolerance control the BB30 problems disappear"... this could very well be true, but finding that applied in practice is very elusive. The tolerance control is the toughest part of the process. Campy's previous cups often did not work so well because they were finely machined alloy. Great. EXCEPT... they were being installed in frames with less than finely machined bb shells. And they creaked. Hence, cups with Delrin or some more malleable surface were sometimes the answer in that these have some give and leeway that allow them to conform better to the imperfections of the bb shell. So today, we have a multitude of frames being produced by different manufacturers, with tolerances ranging all over the board. It's almost hit and miss if a particular frame will be completely trouble free in this regard. There are products out there from Loctite etc., that essentially fill minor imperfections in the tolerances and can provide a good bond where other methods aren't working. Headsets will creak as well, but are not subjected to the same forces as a bb shell. Yesterday, I was asked to check out a newly built bike with a frame of let's just say "suspect" quality as it was creaking like crazy in the headset. Never had I heard a new frame that bad. Haven't gotten to the bottom of it yet, but I suspect it has more to do with quality control in manufacturing than anything else.

I wish the OP ultimate success in finding a resolution to the dilemma he finds himself in. It's not his fault in my opinion. And thanks to Graeme from Campagnolo UK for his excellent previous post in this thread.

[mattythemod]

[quote="Calnago"]I
2) The OP unfortunately became a victim of less than accurate or informed information from the seller of the frame. Seems he was pretty clear on telling them what he wanted to use with it. He is not the frame builder. At some point you have to trust someone you believe is credible. The frame supplier gave the OP some misleading or blatantly incorrect info. Grinding the cups will indeed exacerbate the problem of the cups "walking" or creeping out of the frame. This was not an acceptable answer. They should eat it, and either refund the OP's his entire amount or fix the inherent design problems in the frame.

[quote]

What suprises me is they stand by there claim that they grind down lots of cups to fit there frames ...which i still find crude considering the frame builders heritage ( sponsering a UCI Conti team ) etc .etc.

Or resolve the issue by providing a Compatbile chainset FOC to resolve there mistake , thats got to be cheaper than a returned frameset which incidently has a custom paint finsh that they might have to write off .

[wingguy]

The benefit of BB30 is having a stiffer, lighter 30mm diameter axle in the cranks. If you haven't got that what's the point?

Even Campagnolo only claim an extra 5% increase in stiffness. 5% for all the trouble, tooling and aggravation over Ultra-Torque? Wow, I think there's a queue for that. Somewhere.

I didn't say whether it was worth it, I said that's the benefit. It's in the crank, not the frame (in fact a BB30 frame should have less inherent stiffness than a BB86/90 frame that takes advantage of a wider shell). So what I meant was if you don't have a 30mm axle in your crank then you're getting all of the hassle of BB30 (and more from the adaptors) for none of the benefit.