Got my new Titanium bike the first of Sept. In the past month it started creaking. Seemed like it was coming from the BB. Talked it over yesterday while at the LBS for other reasons and decided to bring it in today. They said it was a little loose so, they used teflon tape on the threads to snug things up. I only was able to ride it down the street this evening for a minute or so and it seems fine. (OK now the point of my post) I was giving my new baby the TLC it deserves a few minutes ago, wiping down the frame, cleaning the chain etc. and it seems like the cranks don’t spin as free as they used to. Has my LBS screwed something up?
Teflon tape on Ti frame is the normal way too go. However, your bb should spin freely, so yes, something is screwed up.
Is it possible to get it too tight or is there some teflon interfering?
I’d suspect a something in the bb when they reinstalled it (debris, piece of metal shaving, etc), perhaps the bb is misaligned to begin with. Does the bb make any noise (kind of a crunching sound when spun?). Remember, it’s a sealed cartridge, so tightening it “too tight” won’t effect how it spins.
I don’t think it makes noise. If I take the chain off the chainring and spin the crank, they only go round
2-3 times vs freely spining around. Hope its not F’d up. Damn I’m up to late!
could have tightened the bearing preload down too much.
external bb or octalinkesque?
on the non-drive side there should be a preload hex bolt thing that you screw in to adjust bearing load…it’s rated for torque. tighten too much, cranks don’t spin. too little, they creak. just right…well…you know the story.
I am going to guess that you have Dura Ace/Ultegra/Mega Exo External Cups…
They probably put the crank arms too tight against the bearing cups. The best way to fix this is to take the arm off the cranks, then put it back on and make sure you only tighten the big screw(that you put on with the black plastic piece or with your allen wrench for the FSA cranks) hand tight. Don’t wrench down on it or the crank won’t spin as nicely. You can tighten the other screws (with the 5mm allen) to the appropriate Torque(about 15Nm) if I recall the exact number.
This is once again, assuming you have shimano external cups/FSA Mega Exo cups.
Sean
Thanks for all the replies. I do have the DA groupo. My suspicion is they tightened things down a bit much, cause I’m a big boy, and that may have been there natural tendency since I put some real stress on a BB.
Looks like the ST Forum steers me back on course again! Scary thought.
Thanks for all the replies. I do have the DA groupo. My suspicion is they tightened things down a bit much, cause I’m a big boy, and that may have been there natural tendency since I put some real stress on a BB.
Looks like the ST Forum steers me back on course again! Scary thought.
Take out, clean and reinstall using copper slip grease. Finishline do a bike specific one but ordinay auto copperslip works too. Stops creaking and corrosion.