As chief bike mechanic for all my mates it appears now, one guy needs a new bb - he's got some octalink cranks so obviously I need one of those (I know, not ISIS....).
I vaguely remember there were two types, one with longer splines maybe. or was that just road and mtb versions?
Presumably Shimano are the default (only?!) replacements.
Spot on! Lovely jubbly
Basically, XTR and the road groups had same spline, but different axle lengths. Xt,lx,deore, etc all had the same spline
Have you got the old BB out? It have its number/code on the shell. So long as the numbers are similar (ES25, ES30, ES51 etc) and you get the right axle length/BB width then it should be fine
E-type is for chain devices/BB mounted front mechs btw
As said already, there are two types (V1 and V2 unsurprisingly!). I managed to learn this the dummies way, I now have a pristine V1 bottom bracket that will match a road (or XTR as P20 said) crankset as my cranks were the more common V2 type. If he needs a V1 BB, give us a shout!
The V1 splines are not as deep as the V2 ones, presumeably to save weight or something!.
[i]Basically, XTR and the road groups had same spline, but different axle lengths. Xt,lx,deore, etc all had the same spline [/i]
Not 100% true. Sora and Tiagra octalink actually use the BB-ES MTB spline rather than the road spline set up.
As James says best bet is to whip the BB out and see what model number it has on it.
spline wise as above, but do watch out for older LX and some of the cheaper HT1's as they run 121mm axles (I think it's that length, hellish long anyhow)