Hello,

I’ve finally jumped on this HT2 bandwagon, moved away from sq/taper. Still much prefer square but it’s becoming a bit of nuicance finding spares so thought I’d see what all the fuss is about with HT2.

I’ve got myself a Chris Bling BB and a Middleburn X-type chainset. These have now done around 40hrs.

However, there still seems to be a lot of resistance in the system.

This is really obvious when the chain is off. With my sq/taper UN54/Middleburn RS8 I spin the crank and it goes for ages, with this HT2 set I spin the crank and it hardly gets two full revolutions in before it stops.

If I back the bolt off a bit it does spin much more freely, but then I can feel movement in the crank arm.
Is this costing me energy overcoming this friction and if so how do I deal with it? (I assume step 1 is buy a torque wrench…) Any other advice?

Cheers,
Andy H

Do middleburn give a torque for the tightness of the crank bolt?

Raceface say as tight as it will go on my mtb, and FSA on the road bike say about 5kn on the crank bolt, which is about finger tight.

I’d say the set up you have is top quality and it might take a few more than 40 miles to be them in possibly once the bolt crank bolt is tightened to spec.

Has the BB shell been faced?

sounds to me like you are getting side loads on the bb. The spindle should be just the right length to go thru the cups without putting a side load on them. Try removing one spacer to see if that helps. I had to do this with mine.

FSA on the road bike say about 5kn on the crank bolt, which is about finger tight

5kn!!! them is some strong fingers fella, I’ll not be challenging you to tiddly winks any time soon…

hehe 5N me thinks!

all HT2 seem to be a bit tight compared to sq. taper and octalink. Nature of the bigger bearings and seals it seems but spinning them without any load compared to when you have your 70-100kg on them is very different.

The play is more worrying – make sure the cups are nipped up okay and the BB shell is square and clean (get faced if needed). Not sure what the Middleburns are like but on Shimano I put a little bit of anti-seize on the splines when fitting the non-drive crank which helps it slide on okay and be very gentle nipping up the pre-load. I’d prefer to have absolutely no play and see if it frees up as long as its not really binding as that could be trashing the bearings.

Thanks guys.

There is no play if I do it up really tight and it works perfectly well, it just seems to create more drag. Backing the bolt off a little gets rid of the drag but does create some play. I was just wondering if the torque setting would allow me to find the happy medium. I can’t remove any spacers, the axle is far too long for this!

It was a new frame but may be worth having it faced just in case, I’ll ask nicely at the LBS next time I’m passing.