Rescuing a Campagnolo Super Record Titanium Axle

Hi -

I (meaning me and the manfriend with the tools) have taken apart a bike for service, and...it has a Super Record BB bracket. Yay, good news! Except that...

...the races for the ball bearings on the axle part are pitted. Nooooooooooo! It's quite bad, bad enough to damage the ball bearings, so unusable.

I hate throwing things away, is there any way to get that polished/fixed at a garage for little £ or is it going to be "cash my titanium" ?

You can get it skimmed but sounds like yours is too far gone, have you any photo's?

My camera AF can't be turned off and it's an **** to take pics of shiny metal close-up. Hope it's clear enough, you can see the pitting even though it's out of focus :(

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A machine shop would be able to skim off the pitting, however:

any hardening or surface finish would be removed, whether this is critical to wear or not i don't know;

the profile or seating radius will be altered so different sized and different quantity of bearings may be required;

the adjustable cup may be required to screw in further so depth of threading inside bottom bracket shell will have to be adequate.

Is the inner surface of the cups also pitted?

I assume you've read this:

(c) Two types of Super Record titanium bottom brackets were offered:

(1) Type I was a hollow version of NR; bearing races were pressed-on steel (like the Ti SR pedals). An unfortunate incident involving Laurent Fignon, the 1982 Giro, and a bad fall while he was in the lead owing to a broken Ti axle resulted in a redesign:

(2) Type II uses a solid axle with threaded nuts. I've never heard of one of these failing, but the bad PR had already doomed it.

(3) Both versions used CP (commercially pure) titanium; about 1/2 the strength of 6/4--but that's what was available!!
(4) Cups were aluminum with pressed-in steel races.

A good machine shop will be able to take off the pressed-on steel races, remake them in tool steel and press the new ones onto the old axle. You should probably be shopping around at the kind of shops which specialise in restoring vintage sports cars & motorcycles. It will be expensive, so very much a last resort after you've discovered that you can't buy a replacement and for some reason don't want to do the right thing, which is to bin it and fit a steel Nuovo Record BB.

Thanks guys :)
It's a solid Axle one, was on Velobase before.

It seems yes it CAN be fixed however...beyond Economic Repair.
Getting machined and new bearings, £20 at least, not too mention the time to find a place that does it as I know nobody that can do it.

(I will ask my dad actually when he's over, he works in metal work maybe he can do it at work but paying somebody for it will be out)

That's going to be one big piercing or some Bicycle Taxidermia.

Getting machined and new bearings, £120 at least

ftfy, even assuming you're paying cash.

Good knowledge, tester, as always

£120???? Pffff....whew!

My dad can actually do machining but he's over in the Motherland AKA the Netherlands. Bet he says dump it too though.

Disclaimer: I am ignorant in the way of metal work.

£120???? Pffff....whew!

My bloke charges £40/h for cash, I can see a job like that being 3h work easily.

If my dad says it's 3 hrs work too he won't bother as it's not worth for the £35 it's worth.

Are we in the wrong job...? ;)

Are we in the wrong job...? ;)

Dunno, £40 charge out rate for a skilled machinist in a well equipped shop is super cheap, I doubt that the bloke actually operating the lathe is getting much more than me. Going rate for turners from a quick job search looks to be £9 up to £15 for supervising.

Can't tell from the picture but would it be possible to put the axle in a lathe and clean it up with some emery cloth

and introduce uneven banded roughness, possibly