Shoddy workmanship??where do i stand

I recently took my bike to have a new bottom bracket fitted,the guy dealing with my bike rang me and told me that whoever had fitted the last bottom bracket had fitted incorrectly,possibly stripping the thread.
The result was that over a period of a few months the bottom bracket had come loose causing the thread to have completely worn both on the bottom bracket and my bike.In fact he didn’t need to unscrew it,,it just pulled out.
In short my bike has had it..

The last time i had the bottom bracket fitted it was at one of a well known chain of bike stores(who for the time being shall remain nameless),there was no mention of any problems then..Where do i stand on this??

depending on how badly worn away it is, theres a possibility you could get it helicoiled. theres a few companies out there that can do it, or ask you LBS

as far as anything else is concerned, ive no idea.

No real comeback. It was months ago, you could / should have noticed it happening, no way of showint the previous fitter was at fault

There are several ways of repairing the thread. Might recut, threaded insert (or iirc there is a differnt type of BB that does not need the threads)

Unfortunately how can you prove they messed up? They could easily argue that you or the recent mechanic have screwed it up, particularly if, as seems likely, it’s been a while since they actually did the work.

The result was that over a period of a few months the bottom bracket had come loose

Did you not notice it being loose, creaking etc?

Where do i stand on this??

At a guess nowhere.

Are you running an E-type front mech/why are the last 3 or 4 threads on the DS cup fine, was it never fully screwed in?

Can the frame threads be chased out? Looks like all you BB material has been transferred intot he frame threads?

Where do you stand? No idea – if we’re talking months since the original work was done then (rightly or wrongly) I expect you’ll have a hard time convincing them that they were the cause of the problem.

You can get threadless BBs, but they’re all square taper as far as I know, so you’d need a new chainset, but at least you can keep using your frame.

Looks like it has been ridden loose IMHO. There’s a lot of marking to the outside of the cup.

A phone call to the original shop isn’t going to help but unfortunetly prob won’t get you anywhere. One bike shop is always going to blame another.

I’d personally just think sod it and do me best to get it fixed and move on,

Argos cycles can repair it with a stainless steel insert,

http://www.argoscycles.com/contacts.htm

try them,my mate had his Santa Cruz Chameleon done there fine job.

bristolbiker – Member

Are you running an E-type front mech/why are the last 3 or 4 threads on the DS cup fine, was it never fully screwed in?

Spacers as usual?

Basically what clubber says. Giving the shop the benefit of the doubt for a moment, they’ve no way of knowing what’s been done to it since they had it in. And if they know they’ve messed up but don’t want to deal with it they can use the same argument.

I’ve been there and it’s one more reason to do stuff like this yourself- then you know exactly who did what.

I tend to take out my bb every 3/4 months and regrease to stop it a, corroding in and b, to check/let out water.

Can the frame threads be chased out? Looks like all you BB material has been transferred intot he frame threads?

+1, an hour with a Stanley knife may be sufficient to save it!

Raceface diabolus bottom bracket has really long cups with loads of threads on them, might save the day.

Forget about the bottom bracket. Look at your poor old fence!!!!

Forget about the bottom bracket. Look at your poor old fence!!!!

Maintenance, hmm…

I bet that was a wobbly bb at the end.

As others have suggested, it looks like the frame could be fine and I’d wager you could just get the threads chased out.

bristolbiker – Member

Are you running an E-type front mech/why are the last 3 or 4 threads on the DS cup fine, was it never fully screwed in?

Spacers as usual?

I only ask as there is a whole field’s worth of carp in the ‘good’ threads – if it had been under a spacer or mech plate AND the BB was never loose then they should be clean as whistle if the last time they say daylight was when the BB was fitted? Must have been loose as a wizards sleeve for a while to collect that much crud under a spacer.

Look familiar??

[/url]
DSC00841[/url] by druidh_dubh[/url], on Flickr

This happened to an XTR BB of mine in a Ti frame. The BB had been fitted correctly and had been working fine for 18-20 months, then one day just went loose (I noticed the BB shell was spinning with the cranks). The aluminium alloy of the BB shell was still in the threads in the frame, so I just cleaned out with with a Stanley knife and fitted a new BB.

I’m not sure how you could incorrectly fit a BB to do that. If it had been cross-threaded than for one it would have been very stiff, and for another it would be stuck in, not falling out. It looks more to me as if it’s been ridden loose.

I was going to say exactly that.
These BB’s seem quite soft.
The threads in the frame may still be there.
J..

njee20 – Member

Can the frame threads be chased out? Looks like all you BB material has been transferred intot he frame threads?

+1, an hour with a Stanley knife may be sufficient to save it!

Threads don’t looked FUBAR just clogged up with softer alloy.

Give it a gentle clean.

BB looks to have been in there a while or at the very least used a fair amount.

Thought this would have been picked up with routine maintenance.

my mate had exactly this too – it was indeed a shimano one, he hadnt touched it and it was sold and put together by a very good shop so i fail to see it being a ‘workmanship’ problem on my mates…..

not sure how it would do this to be honest, but it failed in exactly the same way, my mates now having to run a saint bottom bracket as his threads were goosed! (the saint has longer cups i believe, so gave enough thread to tighten further in the bb)

I reckon a BB tap would clean that up ok, did the bike shop not offer to try re-tapping it??

To go all Luddite, this is why I think square taper is still the best. External bearing systems are hanging the bearing outside the frame, which puts an awful lot of stress on the BB threads, especially as the two sides are independent. A square taper cartridge BB is so solid it can be held in with a plastic cup…

next to your bike, pushing it down the trail?

To go all Luddite, this is why I think square taper is still the best. External bearing systems are hanging the bearing outside the frame, which puts an awful lot of stress on the BB threads, especially as the two sides are independent. A square taper cartridge BB is so solid it can be held in with a plastic cup…

whilst true, a better-still solution would be to have larger bb shell so you could fit an internal BB with the axel/bearing size of an external bb. Ideally this should still be threaded, not that horrible bb30 standard..

Aye, just take it to a shop you can trust and get them to chase the threads as others are saying. They don’t look too bad. There’s also potential to get a BB which screws further into the frame (Saint, and I think some Race Face?).

i say name and shame so we can find out which shop it was and check our bikes if we used them in the past…

I had a Hope ceramic go loose on me – used blue threadlock on mine due to 2 spacers causing the thread depth IMO to be too narrow.

Just have an insert put in.

I’ve had this happen on my jump bike, didn’t notice until I removed the cranks to change chainring. Fortunately the steel frame was fine. I know that the BB was fitted correctly as I did with a torque wrench. Things can just come loose.

bencooper – Member

A square taper cartridge BB is so solid it can be held in with a plastic cup…

Aye. And once it’s been in for a few years, can’t be removed without dynamite and personal intervention from the Pope.

I’ve seen dozens of bikes like this over the years,FWIW
1.You can’t retap material that is’nt there.
2.’Just clean up the thread with a stanley blade’ 😆
3.Using deeper cups is a short term fix at best.
4.Argos/Royce/Betd will bore & sleeve the shell for £50-60.
5.Shizzle happens.
Go back to the shop that did the work.Talk to them rationally and present your facts without seeing your arse.As a large chain they are far more likely to find a resolution as a ‘goodwill’ gesture.
And ffs buy a BB tool.

“1.You can’t retap material that is’nt there.
2.’Just clean up the thread with a stanley blade'”

As per others above, I’d be tempted to have the threads chased first and see how much of the frame threads are left
This is helped my there being a bike shop very local to me that has done this for me a few times before for very little and I have no reason not to trust them. Its a shame they’re a small ‘olde’ road shop. Still, thread chasing and fine wheel tensioning locally is very useful. Virtually everything else I’ve ended up doing myself due to other LBS’s (eg JEJames .. )

If there are none/they’re badly worn then I’d be looking to have a new insert in if I valued my frame enough
(a couple of my frames are worth less than the cost) and it was possible (not sure how much depth an alu. BB shell in a carbon frame has?)

Aye. And once it’s been in for a few years, can’t be removed without dynamite and personal intervention from the Pope.

Nah, there are simple tricks to get them out – I specialise in it. I love it when people bring me a frame with a seized bottom bracket that’s “been to every bike shop in Glasgow and they’ve had it for months” and I get it out in 15 minutes 🙂

You’ve got the Pope on speed dial hav’nt you 😀
No good to me…I’m an atheist.

The best thing about having cronic OCD regarding bikes is I could never have lived with the play/creaking that must have been coming from that mess without investigating before it was terminal!

It never ceases to make me chuckle/cry when bikes come in for something minor (usually a bit of cable stretch) and inconsequential to be fixed……and completely ignore all the major league important stuff that is actually wrong with it (usually blown shocks and/or seized/failed bearings).
And then blame the messenger,because ‘it was’nt like that when I brought it in’ 😐

33mm hole saw. That’s the trick – it’ll shift almost any stuck cup. Or if it’s a steel axle in a steel cup, I weld the axle to the cup, clamp the axle in the vice, and rotate the entire bike.

There are very few things you can’t fix with an oxyacetylene torch – or make much, much worse 🙂

I’m not allowed ‘firey’ things anymore……after ‘the incident’ 😳