Because of the way these cranks are designed with their intergrated bearings is there any other options for BB other than Campy's own?

Could one even modify the cranks to use other bb's?

I would love to find a way of using the new Chris King or Phil Wood BB.

Thanks
fffastfaz

I believe Ceramicspeed, Enduro and others including the VCRC link above makes bearings to replace the standard Campy Ultra bearing.

I did put a set of the Enduro ceramic hybrids on a set of Record Ultra cranks and they did feel much smoother but I didn't ride them long term. I ran into a deal on a set of VumaQuads and the Ultra's were sold off quickly.

_________________
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As already mentioned, there are several companies making replacement bearings that might be superior to Campy's. The only difference in the bearings is 1mm of thickness. Campy uses a 6mm thick bearing and the others use a 7mm thick bearing (standard 6805). I would assume that would make the overall width about 2mm wider than the Campy crank requires.

Within a few months, you'll probably be able to buy either of Campy's new ceramic bearings as spare parts. Record uses a ceramic hybrid and Super Record has ceramic balls with cronitec races that can be run dry, but use oil to minimize noise.

This year -from February till October- I was riding on Campagnolo Record UT cranks, equipped with CeramicSpeed.com bearings that are the exact spec size of the Campagnolo bearings. I did 12.000km on these and just this weekend I serviced the bike to put it away for the winter.

The Ceramicspeed.com ceramic hybrid bearings Jakob did deliver are like new after 12.000km really exceptional. I used bearing seals at both sides (Campagnolo standard is one side) and even the grease inside was almost new ... I did clean the bearings and re-grease them.

But this is not what you ask. You would like to know if there is a possibility to fit another BB on the Campagnolo crank-set ... With some fiddling around and modification that would be possible. But why would you like to do this?

Did you experience problems with the UT BB?

P.S.
Since you are in Oz... You could try Phil P. on this forum. He sells Ceramic Hybrid bearings and is on your continent...

_________________
My bike is Italian so it is Nervosa and of course has Anorexia I like them thin!
GIOS "New" Carbon Ultra 2006 Campa Record+Special parts.
GIOS "New" A90 2008 Campa Record+Special parts. My winter and vacation bike.

Do you expect that either Record 2009 ceramic hybrid or Super Record bearings could be installed and work properly in 2008 Record cranks? Does the Super Record set up require/benefit more from frequent maintenance than Record? At the cost of a little power loss (if any?), can grease, as opposed to oil, be used in Super Record bearings to reduce maintenance interval, and can it be used with the Record cups having the seal as opposed to the Super Record cups not having the seal? Does oil, or grease, affect the efficiency or longevity of the Super Record bearings, or is it just a question of noise (prevention)?

Thanks.

@ DaveS.... and others

Actually I didn’t know exactly and I just supposed that CeramicSpeed/Jakob did deliver to me the Campagnolo spec. bearings. That I did mention in my post before.

I just checked on this because DaveS did write that bearing size 6805 is not the Campagnolo standard but it is 1mm wider. And I was almost sure that CeramicSpeed did deliver 61805 (which are the same as 6805 standard size).

Just ten minutes ago (because of your post this morning mentioning the 6805 spec.) I checked .... and it turned out that CeramicSpeed did deliver to me their so called "CeramicSpeed T61805 RSTN9/HC5 TDC" bearings (very very nice ceramic hybrif bearings).

Actually these are the same size as 6805 and therefore 1mm to wide!!!!
But in nice Ceramic grade 3 balls and nice coated ABEC 5 steel races.

I have been riding my brand new Campagnolo Record UT crank-set with these ceramic hybrid bearings only since February and over 12.000km (I never used the original Campagnolo bearings). I didn't even notice -until now- that the bearings that where delivered are 1mm to wide actually (if you go by Campagnolo Specification)

I experienced no problem at all in my Italian treaded BB. It works out very well not even a sign of wear on the wave washer! This usually does occur. Actually I find my Campagnolo Record UT crank-set the best of all Campagnolo UT crank-sets I did work on.

I already found several times that some lateral play was developing in different Campagnolo UT systems over time. And always the wave washer did show some sign of wear. In these cases I did eliminate the play by using thin spacer-washers between the outboard cups and the BB or just at the inside of the cup between the cup and the wave washer. This is not me alone that found this problem on Several Campagnolo UT system crank sets.
Rogue Mechanic wrote a clear thread about it:
-look at: http://www.roguemechanic.typepad.com/
-Roguemechanic also put it on film look at video 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?eurl=http% ... S0UAqq3xl4
-Roguemechanic also put it on film look at video 2:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9053YXy3 ... pepad.com/

At my own Campagnolo Record UT crank-set this never happened. I never noticed any play or noise. This may be because of the bearings that are 1mm to wide each and therefore adding 2mm in wideness. Furthermore my Campagnolo UT crank-set is spinning very nice and doesn’t stop after a few round turns as we do often see at outbourd bearing systems.

Al this makes me believe that it is better to use 6805 (or 61805 which is actually the same) size bearings in stead of the original Campagnolo spec. bearings. The two mm extra wideness seems to work out fine and it eliminates some problems!

Your thoughts and input please?

_________________
My bike is Italian so it is Nervosa and of course has Anorexia I like them thin!
GIOS "New" Carbon Ultra 2006 Campa Record+Special parts.
GIOS "New" A90 2008 Campa Record+Special parts. My winter and vacation bike.

Yes Amadeus you are correct - I am trying to find out if there is another way of using a better BB system as opposed to using the standard Campy due to the inherent problems that seem to occur with their setup.

Yes changing bearings will help but I would prefer to use a fully enclosed unit if possible hence my reason for suggesting using either a Phil Woods or Chris King BB.

Just wanted to know if anybody has ever tried this and whether it was successful and worth the effort or even if it could be done properly?

Thanks to all who have replied

Rogue's postings are all crap IMO. There is no check of actual axial freeplay and no dimensional analysis. If you want to check axial play, you alternately apply a small force to both sides of the crank, near the center of the crank and use a dial indicator to monitor the axial play.

The idea of using bearings that are 2mm too thick is not a good idea at all. Campy designed the system to allow a 1.6mm variation in BB width. The wavy washer applies a preload tension that will vary from about 20 pounds to perhaps as much as 60 pounds depending on the width of the BB.

The wavy washer is about 3mm tall in it's free state. It's designed to apply preload over a range of about 2.5 to .9mm in height. I measured a wavy washer and found it to be made of .63mm thick material. Installing bearings that are 2mm too thick would almost certainly crush the washer to it's minimum .63mm thickness and might make it impossible for the teeth on the Hirth joint to fully engage.

What users need to realize is the system is designed to have some possible side to side movement (only to the right), if the wavy washer's preload tension is exceeded. There will never be ANY freeplay and never any movement to the left, since the right side bearing is held firmly against the inner face of the right side cup by the force of the wavy washer.

Rogue's idea of adding shim washers just increases the preload applied by the wavy washer. If too much washer is installed, you should encounter extreme bearing drag when the two halves of the spindle are joined.

If someone was actually able to install 7mm thick bearings on a UT crank, and use the wavy washer, either the BB width must be considerably too narrow or the crank was manufactured with a dimensional error.

I don't have a crank off to look at, but it would seem that the locking clip coouldn't be reinstalled on the right side, with such a thick bearing.

If anyone really wants to figure out understand how this system works, install the crank without the wavy washer, pull the crank to the far left, mount a dial indicator on the drive side, near the spindle, then push it all the way to the right. The total travel should be somewhere in the .9-2.5mm range. If it's more than that, then the wavy washer can't work properly. With 7mm thick bearings, the freeplay without the washer should be .5mm at the most and the wavy washer would not even fit in, since it's made of .63mm thick material. If the BB is around nominal in width, just tightening the center fixing bolt should lock up and perhaps damage the bearings.

Edit: The test for axial play that I suggested won't work because the clearance between the left side cup and crank arm is only about 1mm. The crankarm will just hit the cup and not allow the left bearing to touch the inside face of the cup.

There should not be any dimensional changes to the bearings, so any of the UT bearings should fit any UT cup. The use of seals is at the discretion of the user. IMO, seal friction is so minute that it's of no concern.

Since the SR bearings have just come out, about all you can do is read Campy's literature and follow their recommendations regarding the use and benefits of the SR bearings.

The SR bearings should last longer than any other Campy bearing, so if you're a user who rides in the rain and rarely services the bearings, those would be the ones to have (or some other full ceramic bearing).

@ DaveS

First …What you write is what I did think in the first place.
Second … don’t worry about me understanding the Campagnolo UT system.

In my Campagnolo Record UT BB it works perfect with the 61805 ceramic hybrid bearings. But I did read the bearing size from the invoice. When I find time I will measure the bearing size myself…. It could be a wrong specification on the Invoice.

Just to be clear about this.

1-My Campagnolo Record UT BB is functioning perfect containing 61805 bearing size. It spins at least as good as a Phil Wood square taper in fact even better. Actually that is exceptional because most UT BB installations don’t spin that well (plus my ceramic hybrid bearings use seals on both sides!!!!!). So there are no signs of extreme bearing drag. In fact it looks like the bearing drag is a lot less then on the standard bearing installations. Needles to say that on all installations and re-installations of Campagnolo UT BB crank sets I did, the facing of the bracket. It was done by me and perfect.

2-After intensive use over 12.000km of my own Record UT crank set there is no sign of wear at the wave washer. That is rarely seen because mostly there are signs of wear like the photo shows. This indicates that the preload pressure on the wavy washer in my own UT system is not too high, and that there is virtually no lateral play (which actually is a good thing). The ceramic hybrid bearings from CeramicSpeed also showed no sign of play and wear and these are spinning like new I just cleaned these and re-greased.

3- Actually I also (like Rogue Mechanic did) added shim washers several times at UT systems on bikes that belong to friends after their problems couldn’t be solved by their LBS. And it always worked out fine (I did it already before I found the Rogue Mechanic website). The lateral play did disappear. I also added 2x 0.3mm shim washers in between the right outboard cup and the bracket one time on a Tomassini frame. That is also turning out to be a very good solution and solved the problem.

F.y.i.
In all cases the bracket shell was within the limits (I take measurements all the time) and that is for Italian as well as BSA threaded bracket.

When I find time I will dismount my own Campagnolo UT BB and cranks unit and measure my bearings and I will check if your suggestion that the lock ring clip could not be installed. Mine is fitting well. When I follow your theory that would indicate that my bearings are not 61805….. and the size mentioned on the invoice would be wrong. We will see. I will be back on this.

P.S.
I don’t agree that Roque Machanics post is crap.
IMHO it is a good post that gives the right insight in a problem that often occurs after installing Campagnolo UT BB and crank set.

I have encountered the problem several times. And I am not even running a LBS, but just a lawyer with a hobby…..

By the way; this problem only occured on UT crank sets I did not install the first time but that where installed elsewhere…..LBS or OEM. The ones I did install in new or used frames are all O.K.

_________________
My bike is Italian so it is Nervosa and of course has Anorexia I like them thin!
GIOS "New" Carbon Ultra 2006 Campa Record+Special parts.
GIOS "New" A90 2008 Campa Record+Special parts. My winter and vacation bike.

I thought Campy specifies the wavy washer to go on the non drive side?

Yeah Briscoelab,

That's correct the wave washer goes on the left side AKA non drive side.

Look: http://www.campagnolo.com/repository/do ... et_11s.pdf

_________________
My bike is Italian so it is Nervosa and of course has Anorexia I like them thin!
GIOS "New" Carbon Ultra 2006 Campa Record+Special parts.
GIOS "New" A90 2008 Campa Record+Special parts. My winter and vacation bike.

Of course it goes on the left side, but the pressure it applies, pushes on the left side bearing and transfers the force through the spindle to the right side bearing, holding it against the inner face of the cup. The left side bearing never touches the inner face of it's cup because the wavy washer sits between the cup and bearing.

Nearly everyone who reads about how the system works think I'm saying that the washer is on the right. That is NOT what is written.

Hi,

@Amadeus: The correct spec for your Ceramic speed bearing should read T61805.
This is the narrow version of the industry standard 6805/SKF61805.

Ciao,

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Being a snob is an expensive hobby.

I'll add a few more comments about shimming the cups. Unless the BB width is under or near the low limit of 67.2mm, there should never be a need to shim the left side cup. You could place enough shim behind the cup to bring the width up toward the high limit, but any more just defeats the design by applying excessive preload tension. If you overdo it though, it should be obvious when the bearings start to bind up when the fixing bolt is tightened.

If you really want to limit side movement, shimming the left side is also the wrong place to do it. Once the spring clip is in place, only a small fraction of 1mm is left between the right side bearing and spring clip. A washer of the proper thickness could reduce any possible movement to nearly zero and not foul up the designed bearing preload.

I don't know if Rogue documented the amount of wear on the wavy washer, but it is normal for this washer to have three shiny spots where it contacts the bearing, so a picture of shiny spots means nothing.

Here's what one of mine looks like with about 3000 miles of use. There's no wear that you could measure.



The only other situation that might require shimming is if a crank was found to be defective, with too much width between the bearings. A serious mechanic would measure this distance and know if there was a problem to fix or not before guessing at a fix. I measured a right and left side cup and calculated a nominal width of 76.4mm between the faces of the BB cups, with a 68mm BB shell width. I'd be worried if the inside to inside bearing width was much more than 78mm.

My experience has been that if the BB shell faces are square to the threads and the proper width, the threads are greased and the cups torqued to 35Nm, you won't have any problem.

Most problems come from failure to follow most of the instructions and hand tightening the cups with loctite, plus improper use of loctite.