Old (1980s) odd bottom bracket puzzle.

Crazynortherner

Hi Chaps

Following a recent return to road cycling I bought a vintage 1980s Roger Haydock bike off a nice chap in the Northwest.

It stripped down nicely. Much easier than expected. Mostly newer Shimano 105 groupset and a few nice campag bits.

However the BB has me stumped. It is an asymmetric square taper with what looked like Standard adjustable cups BUT with a lock ring on both sides. When the cups came out, even though they looked like vintage silvery steel items; they housed modern sealed bearing races pressed into the cups. No makers marks anywhere. They all run and fit pretty well (right side needs re greasing) keen on either re-greasing the bearing (read:tricky without compromising the seal) or replacing them. I have looked (inc Sheldons site) and can find nothing that really fits. Am considering a Shimano sealed unit but really reticent tbh. Either way I think,it would be tricky sizing a symmetrical new unit to fill the place of the old unit?

Spindle length 120mm. Bb case 68mm. Think english thread. Race inboard edge to end of spindle 34mm (right) and 32mm (left). Doesn't really fit into sheldons sealed unit replacement table as this is for traditional open bearing spindles.

Any ideas? Any help or suggestions at all?

Cheers

John

Matthewfalle

Ciao

Any piccies? A few of us tinker with old stuff so much head scratching may ensue.

Ciao

M

Crazynortherner

Pics: Yes .... and no. Got pics but nowhere to upload em to to link em.

Will get that sorted soonest

Cheers

John

Crazynortherner

Hi.

Here are the pics..






Cheers

John

Matthewfalle

So do you want to replace the whole lot or just part of it?

Maybe a a new sealed square taper unit will bolt straight in?

Vintage bike BRacketeers - waddya say?

Crazynortherner

It would be a worthy solution but am a bit stuck with sizing. As it's asymmetric each side of the spindle is different lengths.

It's also 120mm and I can't find a UN52 that's 120.

They come in 118 and 122.

Any thoughts?

Cheers

J

giropaul

It could well be to fit an older Campagnolo chainset- some were 120.
It looks like ( but isn't) a Royce bracket, which were/are superb. Royce had the name engraved on the cups. If it's running ok I personally would find a chainset ( probably Campagnolo taper, but you'd need to check) to fit.

mamba80

Crazynortherner wrote:

It would be a worthy solution but am a bit stuck with sizing. As it's asymmetric each side of the spindle is different lengths.

It's also 120mm and I can't find a UN52 that's 120.

They come in 118 and 122.

Any thoughts?

Cheers

J

From memory, this is the same as my Peugeot Professionel from the mid 80s (its in the shed now and im not taking it apart to find out!) but back then, i m sure i just knocked out the cartridge bearing and fitted a new one - the cup was alloy and all i did was heat it up a bit - the make was Spidel and the CS a bog std shimano 600, pretty normal.

just found these.....

https://www.flickr.com/photos/stronglig ... 370869037/

cycleclinic

I have a ritchey BB that looks similar to the OP's as well. The bearing will come out somehow. if the cups are alloy heating in from of an electric heater is possibly all it needs. Got press fits loose this way before.

Crazynortherner

Hi,

Cups are stainless steel. It had a Shimano 105 CS that fitted well and worked smoothly.

Odd old bit of kit.

Don't really want to drift out the bearings without replacements in-hand. Suppose I can measure the ID / OD of the bearings and see what there is out there and the if I can get something suitable have a go at getting them out of the cups. Should be able to get em in the cups by shoving the cups in the oven!

I could in the short term attempt to re lube the bearing using a variant of the vacuum method?

Cheers

J

Monty Dog

Looks like a copy of a TA bottom bracket - depends on whether the bearings are standard industrial cartridge ones or not, and whether you can find replacements