I have a Genesis Equilibrium road bike with Tiagra compact cranks. I replaced the factory fitted Shimano HTII BB with a Hope BB. The BB shell is 68mm wide according to the Genesis website.

I’m really confused as there appears to be 1-2mm lateral play. I.e. the crank is a tad too wide to nip both arms up flush to the bearings. There is space between the cranks and the bearing face which results in the crank moving left / right if I give it a knock. According to the Hope BB selection table fitting the 1mm spacers either side is enough.

I’ve tried tightening the preload tensioner on the crank to try and bring the crank in but it just won’t go any further.

Any ideas?

Got no techdocs to be certain, but from memory there’s a spacer that fits over the axle on at least some Tiagra cranks, sounds like you aren’t using one.

Don’t the road and nth hope bottom brackets have different shells? Sure you’ve got the right one?

Nope, same BB, different spacers with Hope. Just checked on Shimanotechdocs, and reckon you’re missing a 3mm spacer (part no.6 in the diagram).

Okay, saw them listed at different parts recently so thought they might be different. As for the Tiagra spacer, my triple came with one if that helps.

I’m getting more and more confused. MTB vs Roadie BB bearing widths. Anyone got an Equilibrium with Shimano BB? How many spacers?

If you compare the MTB and road docs

MTB

Road

I believe the cups are the same, but the center tube of the road setup is shorter. Also the road setup needs a 1mm spacer at each side instead of the 2.5mm usually used by MTB

Yeh cheers. That’s what I’ve done. Took the Shimano HTII BB out. Replaced with Hope road BBs plus 1mm spacer each side. But there is still some ‘space’.

if it’s a fc4603 then there are spacers on both sides of the axle.
one is 6.5mm (drive side) and the other 3mm. The standard and compact
chainsets have no spacers.

check your bb’s center tube – it should be marked either BBSP101:3 or
“Road tube” and you should also have the 1mm spacers on both bearing
cups.

PDF Link

http://cycle.shimano-eu.com/media/techdocs/content/cycle/EV/bikecomponents/FC/EV-FC-4650-3146_v1_m56577569830753743.pdf

Is it possible that the component marked ‘5’ called ‘ring’ could have stayed with the original BB and make the difference in space?

Arrgghhh. Operator error 😳

I’d popped the seals off to put a bit more grease in the bearings and had forgotten to reinsert the hard plastic outer seal before re-fitting the crank. Apparently it acts as a 2mm spacer also 😉