Bottom bracket wobble

My Charge Plug I bought in Evans in December has started to act up a bit.

The other day I noticed a scraping sound coming from the bb area, that stopped after a couple miles. But in the last few days I have begun to feel a clunk through the pedals when being turned, happens twice per revolution when my feet are at the top/bottom of the revolution. If I grab the crank arm and give it a pull it seems that there is a little side to side play in the bottom bracket.

Does this sound totally fucked then?
Also would it be a warranty that they should sort out for free?

My mechanic skills are so far a big fat zero, hence asking on here.

Cheers.

I should add that the side to side wobble when I pull the cranks is only about 1mm or so

Loose bb cups?

To be fair if you have no mechanical skills take it to a decent shop rather than get the Lfgss diagnosis

hmm, just had a closer look and the cup does indeed seem to have a bit of give in it when I pull/push the crank arm.

I had the same thing. Took it to my local bike shop. They said it was a loose bottom bracket. They charged me £5 to fix it.

Would love to have fixed it myself but I believe it requires tools I don't own. :(

Having said that I do very much enjoy taking my bike to professionals to get it fixed - I feel a lot happier hacking along busy roads knowing that if it falls apart, it's not because of something stupid I've done! My bike repairs consist of too much guesswork.

i had exactly the same thing on my plug.

bc (jimbilly) replaced mine with a new sugino one for about 30 quid.

edit: he did say they could have tightened it, but it was on its way out and while they had it all apart i thought i might as well get it swapped out

Hmm, went over to a friend who has a load of bike tools and we tightened the cups which solved the problem, but after about 10 miles it has wiggled slightly loose again.
Does this mean the thread could be fucked, would using some loctite or similar stuff be worth a shot?
Any more ideas?

Cheers for the replies so far!

loctite may be needed, but the threads could be gone - is it fucked on the bb cups or on the frame itself

It depends where the movement is.
The wingle may not be in the cups, its may be the axle. This can usually be diagnosed by looking down to se if there are threads exposed on the BB cups. If there are it needs tightening (on the whole) and if there aren't it will need replacing (much of the time).

The new charges have really crap BBs right?

It sounds more like the bearings in the BB are fucked rather than it not being screwed in enough. Also, make sure cranks are super tight on the BB, they may have worked a bit loose if the cranks were installed poorly and may have contributed to lateral movement of the BB spindle thereby fucking the bearings.

But once we tightened the non drive side cup on the BB the problem disappeared totally, and only came back after it had wiggled slightly loose again it's probably not even 1mm of wobble, just easily felt with the feet when pedaling.
Going to try some loctite on it tomorrow and see how I get on, and if that doesn't do the trick then I'll replace the BB.

If the threads are fine then try putting PTFE tape on them and screwing it back together, much cheaper than loctite and very effective.

Right, it's still wobbling now even though the cups are in nice and tight so it must be the bearings in the BB that are fucked, time for a replacement one i think.

The Plugs info page says the current BB is:
TH industries 7420ST, Square, 68*103mm

So I guess I need to get one with both of those measurements the same, is that right?

Buy either a tange 103 or a sugino 103. Both are much better than your current BB, but neither are that good. 103's are stupid.

This one:

http://www.spacycles.co.uk/products.php?plid=m2b0s110p141

68mm English thread, 103mm spindle. The tool costs about £5 if you want to do it yourself. Remember, to loosen the drive side turn it clockwise.

If you are concerned with weight, the aluminium version is £4 more.

^ thats not a very good quality BB. Go sugino / tange.

Cheap sugino should do the job. Same thing happened to me, scraping griding noise. Bearings were totally busted.

If your bottom bracket has deep groove bearings fitted you usually find that the cage between the balls lets go first which causes the balls to move together. You would also expect a little extra clearance. Hold back on glue or extra tightening, I'd let it develop or take the beast appart, yes seriously get some tools and have a go, you'll wonder what all the fuss was about. If you ever go down the loctite route be sure to avoid the stronger products such as bearing fit or stud lock as you will have to sweat the assembly out to shift the glue, but would agree that thread lock is a good product.

^ thats not a very good quality BB. Go sugino / tange.

Stronglight and Tange BBs are both made by Tange. Stronglight don't make BBs anymore.

For a quality one, I would choose Hope. Send it away for a rebuild when it gets gritty, so not so expensive as it first appears.

If your bottom bracket has deep groove bearings fitted you usually find that the cage between the balls lets go first which causes the balls to move together. You would also expect a little extra clearance. Hold back on glue or extra tightening, I'd let it develop or take the beast appart, yes seriously get some tools and have a go, you'll wonder what all the fuss was about. If you ever go down the loctite route be sure to avoid the stronger products such as bearing fit or stud lock as you will have to sweat the assembly out to shift the glue, but would agree that thread lock is a good product.

Urghhhh... Its a sealed bottom bracket....

Stronglight and Tange BBs are both made by Tange. Stronglight don't make BBs anymore.

For a quality one, I would choose Hope. Send it away for a rebuild when it gets gritty, so not so expensive as it first appears.

Doesn't matter if its made by the same same people in the same place, its not the same product, and its not as good as tange or sugino, neither of which are as good as a UN54 or a Veloce neither of which are good as Phil... blah blah.

A friend has all the tools so I'll pick up a new BB and head over to his to replace it.
Cheers for all the replies.

Do Hope still make square taper bottom brackets...??

Don't think so.