Built my first bike from start to finish last year (Scandal V2) but the bottom bracket has creaked from the off (hope).

When I fitted it a wee bit of grease was added. Did do up tight but unsure if should have been tighter.

Using your own strength scale, is bottom bracket at the top of the scale ie ‘blooming heck, that’s going no where, couldn’t turn that any further’ or just shy?

Don’t want to just keep on tightening at the risk of stripping the thread with my awesome power.

Just tight enough so it stops & needs a bit of force to undo again but not enough you have to hammer the spanner to undo it

That would be exact tightness it is 😉

Would you ever use lock-tight on a bottom bracket?

I wouldn’t (Ht2 & taper) never had one come loose

It doesn’t need to be “bloody hell” tight, just fairly tight. If you can’t turn it any more it’s too tight IMO. And it’s not going to unwind as you ride unless there’s some other problem with the threads or cups

Provided it’s not cross threaded, you’ll do well to strip a BB and because the shoulder of the cup tightens up against the end of the shell they come up very solid quite quickly. So, tight but as above don’t go mental and hammer it or jump on it. In contrast to the above, if you can still move it one armed with a sensible length handle it’s not tight enough.
Edit: I’d always pull on the spanner to tighten, don’t push on it with your weight behind it, you’ve got no control that way, that’s reserved for un-doing things. If you brace yourself against the frame and pull the spanner you’ll have a pretty good feel for the point at which it stops turning.

The man from Hope says ‘Nice and tight’: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UAqAanDsAKA

Are you sure it’s the bottom bracket that is creaking? Checked, cleaned and greased all threads and mating surfaces where appropriate? Pedals are a good source of mystery clicks, creaks and groans I find.

A good firm push on lever that is about a foot long (e.g. a big spanner) does it for me. Tighter than bar/stem bolts, for example, but no need to force it. The action of the cranks tends to tighten it over time anyway I find.

I’d always pull on the spanner to tighten, don’t push on it with your weight behind it, you’ve got no control that way, that’s reserved for un-doing things. If you brace yourself against the frame and pull the spanner you’ll have a pretty good feel for the point at which it stops turning

this.

…or if you want to be really anal precise about it you can buy one of these tools:

http://www.wiggle.co.uk/lezyne-external-bottom-bracket-socket-tool/?lang=en&curr=GBP&dest=1&utm_source=pla&utm_medium=base&utm_campaign=uk&kpid=5360457718

and use with a torque wrench to match the specified torque setting for the BB.

That’s what I did.

I’m 95% sure the creak is from the BB but it’s accompanied with a creak from the removable drop-outs.

The forks are coming off this weekend so a good strip/inspection will follow.

Cheers guys.

check you have the alloy spacers and not the plastics ….

Cheers trail rat, will do. Fro memory I’ve not used an spacers. I’ve got a chain device (MRP X1) on the drive side instead of a spacer. Does this normally cause creaking? The body of the MRP is metal.