Cranks loose in Hope bottom bracket

paulswilliams2

My second issue today is loose cranks in a hope external bottom bracket on Orange P7 with 68mm bb shell.

I've removed the Raceface single speed crank, removed the Hope bottom bracket cups, cleaned everything up and reassembled as such:

Drive side cup with seal (step outwards) with 2 spacers, then axle 'cover'. I then replaced the non-driveside cup with 1 spacer and tightened both sides. Both cups felt secure.

I then put in cleaned non drive side crank, and tightened drive side spider with 8mm allen key as tight as humanly possible. There's still about 1mm of plan - I can move the cranks left to right.

I tried 'widening' the cups by adding another spacer on non-drive side which removed the play, but preloaded the bearings and thus the cranks were hard to turn. Should I be adding this extra spacer, and just easing off the pressure a little, or should the BB just fit with 2 drive side spacers, 1 off side as the shop recommended?

nicklouse

Sounds like you are just not using enough force.

Unlikely you will put the correct torque onto the bolt with an Allen key.
Read your cranks tightening torque and tighten bolt to that amount.

paulswilliams2

@nicklouse interesting - my Raceface cranks only come with Allen key cap - are you talking about using the hex interface, but with a long torque wrench?

FishFish

I did the sane thing yesterday. According to raceface (and mine is a single ring) you need two spacers either side. I used the 8mm key and could not get the cranks to tighten so I took out the cap - 10 mm key then tried again and it worked. Don't know why. Putting a second ring on the non drive sorted out the chainline issue I had. BTW I love my P7 but I just completed a single chainring build on a charge duster! Really chuffed.

paulswilliams2

@FishFish gonna try the torque wrench first, and see where that takes me! I also love the P7 geometry, image etc but get irritated with seat post and had problems with slipping dropouts years ago when I went singlespeed. There's a little surface rust around the chainstay, and if it ever proves terminal, I'll be lookingl Duster, Soul or more probably a Stanton.

FishFish

The stuff that came with my crank said that if you cannot get the torque then clean, regrease and try again. Watch out for that surface rust. There was a thread a year or so ago about a p7 (2008?) where the chainstay was eaten completely through with rust. Later models aparently had a different steel alloy but I don't see it being stainless.

paulswilliams2

@FishFish yeah, I saw that thread, bike shop said it looks just like surface rust #fingers_crossed