I’m trying to find an ISIS BB that will not start creaking in a month or two. I’ve tried most of the FSA BB’s available but not much luck. I use pipe thread tape, grease and so forth but live on a dirt road (kind of sandy) and although my road is only 1/4 long this seems to be enough. While the seals on the FSA BB’s I’ve tried seem sufficient, dust is either getting in through the seals or into the bb shell. FSA is now sealing BB with the anti-creak sleave, anyone tried one? Should I be looking at a non-FSA BB?
I use a middle of the road Truative MTB ISIS bottom bracket on my tri bike.
It’s been on for 2 years now and feels really smooth
I found that tightening the BB was really important. At first I tightened it by hand thinking that I could guess the torque. It made some stranges noises when pedaling hard uphill.
I then got a torque wrench and tightened it to the specs on the BB itself. It was not as tight as I though it should be but it stopped creaking and has worked wonderfully since.
Are you sure it’s the BB itself creaking or is it the interface of the arms and BB? Seems like you have the BB shell threads covered with what you have tried. Have you used either an anti-freeze compound or a thick assembly grease on the fluted joining area of the BB where the crank arms slide on? Have you used a torque wrench? I had a problem with seating ISIS cranks on the BB a while back. The solution that FSA recommended was to get a steel crank bolt and crank it as tight as I could. I used an 18" breaker bar with near my full weight on it. I weigh 140 so that would be about 200ft/lbs of torque. I then removed the steel crank bolt and installed the fancy self extracting aluminum bolts to spec (35 ft/lbs). The crank was seated straight and there was no creaking.
Interesting. I have had a difficult time keeping the alum BB bolt tight and this does create issues with the spindle/crank arm interface. I will try what you have mentioned with a steel bolt. I generally use “grease” but will try some of the assembly grease as well. I haven’t been using a torque wrench but will have one and will use it.
American Classic doesnt make them anymore, but they can still be found on the web. I use one on my MTB and have for years. After replacing the alum. crank bolts with steel, I havent had a single problem. They are rebuildable if you do have some bearing issues. Following torque spec is expremely important with these, as over tightening drmatically increases bearing load and can lead to premature failure. I shop monkey put mine in after I had dropped my bike off to have shock warranty work done. I told them twice to make sure to follow the torque specs. Yeah, right. I had to remove my crank when I got home and redo it.