I have an old raleigh road bike which I am slowly and cheaply refurbishing as a hybdrid communting bike. The old bottom bracket spindle is worn and I want to buy a new sealed unit, my problem is which one ? There seems to be a bewildering number. I have been looking at shimano makes, what do the measurements 68mm and 73mm mean ? How do I find out what thread size i need ? I have worked out that the length of the axle should be either 115 or 118 mm.
I have been to my nearest halfords in the uk and to be honest they were not much help also my local bike shop is notorious for being unhelpful unless your are buying an expensive new bike.
Also I have measured the rear dropout width and this is 126mm is this a normal width for a road bike or will I have problems buying a new rear wheel to fit.
Cycling Equipment · Public discussion
Bottom Bracket help
Thread navigation
Jump through the discussion
Go to the original post, the replies on this page, or the latest preserved contribution.
Thread details
What we know about this thread
- Original section
- Cycling Equipment
- Published
- 8 December 2004
- Last activity
- 8 December 2004
- Original author
- yke78uk
- Posts
- 8
- Discussion status
- Public discussion
- Total views
- 1,396
- Views / 30 days
- 0
The navigation and discussion metadata provide context. Posts remain in their original chronological order.
-
-
[font=Times New Roman]I haven’t been using these forums too long. But I do know that there are some people on the Bicycling forums [/font][font=Times New Roman]forums.bicycling.comforum.jspaOpen ↗[/font][font=Times New Roman] that probably could help answer this question.[/font]
-
yke78uk said:
I have an old raleigh road bike which I am slowly and cheaply refurbishing as a hybdrid communting bike. The old bottom bracket spindle is worn and I want to buy a new sealed unit, my problem is which one ? There seems to be a bewildering number. I have been looking at shimano makes, what do the measurements 68mm and 73mm mean ? How do I find out what thread size i need ? I have worked out that the length of the axle should be either 115 or 118 mm.
I have been to my nearest halfords in the uk and to be honest they were not much help also my local bike shop is notorious for being unhelpful unless your are buying an expensive new bike.
Also I have measured the rear dropout width and this is 126mm is this a normal width for a road bike or will I have problems buying a new rear wheel to fit.68 or 73 is bottom bracket shell width on the frame for english threaded BB. 70mm is width for italian threading. Dollars to donuts,you have english threading.If you are reusing the old crank,match current spindle length,as measured end of taper to end of taper. 126 dropout spacing was used for 6 and 7 speed. You may still find wheels with hubs built to that spec, but most current wheels will be built around hubs that are 130 over locknut for 8,9, and 10 speeeds.You may have a freewheel,and newer wheels are built aroun casssette hubs for the most part.Your frame can be spread to accomodate the wider hubs.
-
I have just measured the bottom bracket shell and it is 73mm including the locking ring and 70mm without. Surely an old raleigh made in nottingham won't have italian threading ! Is 5mm critical, why won't a 68mm bottom bracket fit in a 73mm shell is the threadsize different. I think you can tell I am new to this sort of thing.
boudreaux said:
68 or 73 is bottom bracket shell width on the frame for english threaded BB. 70mm is width for italian threading. Dollars to donuts,you have english threading.If you are reusing the old crank,match current spindle length,as measured end of taper to end of taper. 126 dropout spacing was used for 6 and 7 speed. You may still find wheels with hubs built to that spec, but most current wheels will be built around hubs that are 130 over locknut for 8,9, and 10 speeeds.You may have a freewheel,and newer wheels are built aroun casssette hubs for the most part.Your frame can be spread to accomodate the wider hubs.
-
boudreaux said:
68 or 73 is bottom bracket shell width on the frame for english threaded BB. 70mm is width for italian threading. Dollars to donuts,you have english threading.If you are reusing the old crank,match current spindle length,as measured end of taper to end of taper. 126 dropout spacing was used for 6 and 7 speed. You may still find wheels with hubs built to that spec, but most current wheels will be built around hubs that are 130 over locknut for 8,9, and 10 speeeds.You may have a freewheel,and newer wheels are built aroun casssette hubs for the most part.Your frame can be spread to accomodate the wider hubs.
I had to replace a mid 80's Campy Super Record BB a few years ago and found that Campy did not make anything that would fit. I finaly found a Phil Wood BB that worked. Make sure that your BB spindle is symetric, meaning that the spindle on the chainring side is not sticking out farther than the other side. You also need to make sure the taper on the end of the spindle matches your cranks. I also went with a new rear wheel with a modern hub that uses standard cassettes rather than freewheels. I had to spread my frame to accept the 130 mm width. Its fine as long as it is a steel frame.
You may want to read what Sheldon Brown has to say about old Raleigh bikes also.
http://www.sheldonbrown.com/raleigh26.html
http://www.philwood.com/webcatolog/pg11.htm -
yke78uk said:
I have just measured the bottom bracket shell and it is 73mm including the locking ring and 70mm without. Surely an old raleigh made in nottingham won't have italian threading ! Is 5mm critical, why won't a 68mm bottom bracket fit in a 73mm shell is the threadsize different. I think you can tell I am new to this sort of thing.
Ya don't measure the lockring. Threading is the same for a 68 or 73 shell. Check the BB cups for a thread size.
-
davidbod said:
I had to replace a mid 80's Campy Super Record BB a few years ago and found that Campy did not make anything that would fit. I finaly found a Phil Wood BB that worked. Make sure that your BB spindle is symetric, meaning that the spindle on the chainring side is not sticking out farther than the other side. You also need to make sure the taper on the end of the spindle matches your cranks. I also went with a new rear wheel with a modern hub that uses standard cassettes rather than freewheels. I had to spread my frame to accept the 130 mm width. Its fine as long as it is a steel frame.
You may want to read what Sheldon Brown has to say about old Raleigh bikes also.
http://www.sheldonbrown.com/raleigh26.html
http://www.philwood.com/webcatolog/pg11.htmGood catch on Sheldons Raleigh stuff.Like so much Schwinn stuff they did things their own way.All the ones I have diddled with were somewhat more current out of the orient and and at lest used standard threading and parts.
-
After looking at the sheldon brown website it looks like I might get away with using an italian 70mm bottom bracket cartridge. If that doesn,t fit I think I might get a new frame because it looks like I will have problems getting new wheels to fit.
davidbod said:
I had to replace a mid 80's Campy Super Record BB a few years ago and found that Campy did not make anything that would fit. I finaly found a Phil Wood BB that worked. Make sure that your BB spindle is symetric, meaning that the spindle on the chainring side is not sticking out farther than the other side. You also need to make sure the taper on the end of the spindle matches your cranks. I also went with a new rear wheel with a modern hub that uses standard cassettes rather than freewheels. I had to spread my frame to accept the 130 mm width. Its fine as long as it is a steel frame.
You may want to read what Sheldon Brown has to say about old Raleigh bikes also.
http://www.sheldonbrown.com/raleigh26.html
http://www.philwood.com/webcatolog/pg11.htm
Active in the last 60 minutes
Active in this thread
0 users · 0 guests ·0 bots ·0 total
No signed-in users are active right now.
No known search crawlers active right now.