Was wondering if anyone has some tips or might be able to help me troubleshoot a clicking/creaking noise that seems to be coming from my crankset. It feels like a creaking noise reverberating through the frame, although it sort of clicks too. I only get noise when spinning the pedals (ie no noise when coasting and nor when coasting and jumping up and down on the pedals). The creaking seems to go away under heavy load (out of the saddle or just pushing hard), and sort of semi-randomly comes on when I'm just spinning at low watts.

I've just installed a new sram GXP (non ceramic) english BB, with SRAM red compact crankset. I've got a dura ace 7900 chain and ultegra cassette, with connex connector link. I had a shimano BB and crankset on before hand (with all other parts the same) and had no noise problems whatsoever. Noise has come about only after installing the GXP BB and Red crankset (and red chainrings). Greased the BB threads and spindle etc before installation, and the cranks seem to install fine.

I removed the chainrings and coated the spider surface with carbon paste, put loctite on the chainring bolts and torqued them to what I think is spec (no torque wrench, sorry), as I thought that could be it, but it didn't change anything. Not sure how tight spec is for chainring bolts, but couldnt get them much tighter.

Are the red chain rings incompatible with the DA chain? is that likely to be it anyway? I think the GXP BB is installed correctly, there is certainly no side to side play in it, and it spins smooth, although there seems to be a large gap between the drive side crank arm and drive side bearing (although I think that's supposed to be normal on the GXP BB?)

Appreciate any ideas anyone might have, the noise is driving me crazy!

You just installed a new bb, did you install spacers between the BB and the frame? If so, did you grease those spacers? I had the same issues and found out that a bit of grease changed things.

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no spacers. I did grease, I guess maybe I could have greased more. seems weird though if the noise only comes on with low watt pedalling and not when I stand on the bb when I'm coasting..

I use SRAM Red but with 7800 bb & crank on my 06 cervelo R3.
Had a clicking noise which I thought was coming from the bb and was only obvious when standing or pushing hard.
It turned out to be that I didn't tighten my kcnc skewers enough. Given I was using da before that I misjudged the tightness as lightweight skewer cams have a different feel.

Hope it helps.

Make sure to torque the crank bolt on the non drive side to 54nm. This is a really high amount of torque and if you didn't use a torque wrench you are probably not anywhere near 54nm. A good beam torque wrench is about $25 at Sears and is priceless when working on your own bike.

+1. I had the same issue, I didnt notice any play in my crank arms, so I brought it in for warranty service. My mechanic immediately grabbed a torque wrench and retorqued the crank bolt. Problem solved.

right, thanks. will try the crank bolt then.