Way back in September of 2008, I published my initial post about what I thought was a problem with the Ultra-Torque design. Now going on a year later, I am even more confident with my initial theory. But now I have a solid solution to the problem that some who have a Campagnolo Ultra-Torque crankset/bottom bracket may have experienced.
First, I want to make a couple points...
- I will not deny that for the most part, Ultra-Torque is a good design. Where it fails is in its capability to allow for shell width variances. This may seem like a a minor flaw, but it has major consequences.
- For the life of me, in this day and age, and with all of the current technology, why can't frame manufactures make their 68mm bottom bracket shells 68mm and their 70mm shells 70mm?!?! If this was the case, there wouldn't be a need for the wavy washer in the Ultra-Torque design.
- The wavy washer is a legit component in certain applications in many industries. But in this instance, it's a band-aid.
- If it's OK to have axial or lateral movement to the non-drive side, why is the Ultra-Torque design the ONLY design out there that has this movement? If any of the other systems exhibit this movement, it means that either the bearings are shot, or you didn't install the proper bottom bracket and/or spacers.
So I finally got around to fixing (or as it turns out, attempting to fix) my extremely annoying Super Record Ultra Torque click. My bottom bracket shell measures 67.5 mm, faced--on the low side of the 67.2 to 68.8 mm range that Campy suggests for English threaded, but still in the range. The thinnest BB spacer/shim I could find was 0.7 mm. I put one on. Still a lot of movement and clicking by squeezing the non-driveside crank arm against the chainstay. I put 2 0.7mm on. The bottom bracket completely bound up when the Hirth joint was snugged down. I took out 1 0.7 mm and put in an extra wavy washer, fully interlaced with the first. (The wavy washer also looks to be about 0.7 mm.) Bottom bracket bound up. So I need another spacer between 0 and 0.7 mm. This is much less tolerance than the 1.6 mm that Campy says is allowable. I'll have to have a number of shims from .1mm to .3mm custom-fabricated. But this is ridiculous. I've never had any problems with my Dura Ace bottom brackets, and regret the decision to dive into Campy.
Posted by: Jeff | September 27, 2009 at 11:24 PM
Hello Jeff,
I here ya... It's just not right. If you haven't already noticed, I recently posted my solution to this problem along with a shim kit that I put together. Check it out and let me know if you have any questions. Thanks for writing! -John
Posted by: RogueMechanic | October 07, 2009 at 05:04 PM