I have a small gap between the twisty plastic pre-loader and my BB shell, I’m sure it’s supposed be tight against it? There is no play or anything, seems to be working fine, just bugging me…

As long as there’s no axial play, no worries. You might want to re-check preload after a couple of rides

If theres a gap, the cranks can slide from side to side, which cant be good…

you can have a gap between the preloader and the arm of the crank

but if you have a gap between the the preloader and the bearing, then the preloader isn’t doing its job (at all).

the preloader is the placky thing

Can’t see your pic but sounds like what I had using a hope bb with a raceface crank. Couple of spacers from wheelsmith did the job. Available in 24mm and 30mm in 0.5mm or 1mm thicknesses.

I’ve seen this on cinch cranks before too. The tolerances are aweful. We put a 0.5mm spacer on drive and non drive side to compensate.

Cheers doodz

Ok i have tried taking off the crankset and reinstalling, but its goes back together the same way. the gap i thought i had is actually filled with the RF dustcap, but this does not seem to make good contact with the bearing…

Again there is no play and everything works fine, chainline etc all good.

when the non-drive side crank is in my hand i can turn the pre-loader fine, but once ive installed and torqued up it goes nowhere. the videos and instructions ive seen all show the crankset being manually pulled through the bb a couple of mm, i cant do this either.

the crankset was originally fitted on a PF BB92 – its now in a threaded 73mm bb shell with hope external cups, the drive-side cup has a 2.5mm spacer behind it.

Enjoy your lunch guys 😉

I have a similar issue! I could do with slightly changing the chainline too.

Chilled76 – have you got a link to the spacers please?

The preload nut has a beveled step in it, it is physically impossible to get the gap illustrated in your second picture to 0. There seems to be no gap between the inner bearing race and the inner part of the preload nut, and that is what is important.

What worries me is

but once ive installed and torqued up it goes nowhere

This would suggest you are either fitting the crank with the preload adjuster already wound in, or there is an extraneous spacer/washer somewhere – in your first picture I think there is a plastic washer between the BB and the preloader. There is such thing as too much preload, just as there is too little.

Is it not that i need a slightly longer spindle?

or, as i am not using a RF BB, can i ditch the little dustcap…?

If it is this one, then yes, you should definitely ditch it/them. The Hope BB has its own dustcaps.

huzzah!!! 😀