Now the other day I felt something really odd, the BB all of a sudden had a serious crunch feeling in it as the cranks went around... something was wrong and I pulled apart the BB
These Campag BB's uniquely have 2x bearings on the DS with a single on the NDS. The NDS bearing (Open on the inside face with rubber seal on outer NDS face) felt very crunchy. I had a minor issue when installing this initially, the BB was binding as I was threading in the NDS cup which eventually went away. My theory is that the NDS bearing cup was sitting out too far, it might have slipped out of position for some reason and some gunk in the frame slipped inside and got caught between the middle shell and the bearing and got into the races which explains the binding, and later the crunchiness..
Anyway, I ordered a genuine NTN replacement bearing with the LLB non-contacting seals. These are more suitable to the lower RPM of a typical BB. I still find it crazy that there are a lot of counterfeit bearings so I ordered this from a bike shop who gets them from the official importer. not cheap at about £20 but still cheaper than a new Chorus BB which is £65. The NDS is held on by a simple wire circlip, so very simple to replace. the DS has some kind of crazy circlip, doing a bit of research it's difficult to remove without damaging it, luckily those bearings were totally fine.
Again, these were quite easy to remove, I had a spare bearing puller. Installing the new bearing just involved purchasing a cheap piece of aluminium tube with an ID of 17mm to match the axle and tapping these on gently. Felt like new, and left both rubber seals on to prevent any other gunk from ever getting in again.
Now the other day I felt something really odd, the BB all of a sudden had a serious crunch feeling in it as the cranks went around... something was wrong and I pulled apart the BB
These Campag BB's uniquely have 2x bearings on the DS with a single on the NDS. The NDS bearing (Open on the inside face with rubber seal on outer NDS face) felt very crunchy. I had a minor issue when installing this initially, the BB was binding as I was threading in the NDS cup which eventually went away. My theory is that the NDS bearing cup was sitting out too far, it might have slipped out of position for some reason and some gunk in the frame slipped inside and got caught between the middle shell and the bearing and got into the races which explains the binding, and later the crunchiness..
Anyway, I ordered a genuine NTN replacement bearing with the LLB non-contacting seals. These are more suitable to the lower RPM of a typical BB. I still find it crazy that there are a lot of counterfeit bearings so I ordered this from a bike shop who gets them from the official importer. not cheap at about £20 but still cheaper than a new Chorus BB which is £65. The NDS is held on by a simple wire circlip, so very simple to replace. the DS has some kind of crazy circlip, doing a bit of research it's difficult to remove without damaging it, luckily those bearings were totally fine.
Again, these were quite easy to remove, I had a spare bearing puller. Installing the new bearing just involved purchasing a cheap piece of aluminium tube with an ID of 17mm to match the axle and tapping these on gently. Felt like new, and left both rubber seals on to prevent any other gunk from ever getting in again.