Maintenance on Campy External BBs

[SlackMan]

I have lamented before about the ineptitude of my LBS, so realistically I have to my own wrenching. I have no experience with external BBs, but do have experience replacing / rebuilding cartridge type and loose bearing square taper BBs.

I am considering buying an Campy Ultra Torque crank to replace the crankset that came on a complete bike I bought. My questions are:

*How often is bearing maintenance necessary and how hard is it? I am down to one road bike so I use it for everything, including commuting and sometimes get caught in the rain.

*Would I need to buy the Park CBP3 puller / setter for the UT bearings?

*Would it be much easier overall to just buy a used Campy crank that takes a square taper BB?

Thanks in advance for any advice.

[tuscanyswe]

Unless you ride in a lot of faul weather i don't expect you to replace the bearings more than every other year or so.

Maintenance really is just regreasing the cups as thats about all you can do.

In winter tho.. thats another story. Then i need new bearings after every winter season but thats swedish winter with riding 5 days a week in wet and snow for several hours.

You will need a bearing puller if you want to install new ones in a good manner and your suggestion seems like a good option tho I'm sure there are cheeper ones that work pretty good as well.

I think you get better milage on square taper bbs but i love campy ut. They are great and easy to work with imo.

[ultraman6970]

The bearings are good, but it depends a lot of the riding you do and how brute you are to really ask for those bearings to be swapped... never changed mines but i dont ride under the rain, dont race and I do little mileage per year. My best guess is that if you race and train a lot, probably you will run over bearings each two years... the symptoms are really obvious... the cranks start having some play.

Always good to have the tools you know. But to use that each 2 or 3 years (or more)... maybe is better just do your own tools you know (google).

UT vs squared tapper?? well it depends, I like UT a lot, to me feels a lot stiffer than sealed bearing squared tapper BB from campagnolo. That's a call you have to make IMO.

IMO the campagnolo UT cranksets are easier to mantain than squared tapper, just because of the tools you need, you need less tools (sure you have them already).

[SlackMan]

Thanks, guys. Anyone else have any thoughts?

[lhuerta]

My SR cranks with CULT ceramic bearings have turned over turned 20K miles and they still spin like butter. I have had back-up brings in my drawer for several years but have never needed to install. I pull the crank about twice a year, flush and relube....very maintenance lite.

[Lionel]

Some of my UT cranks are from 2009 and still spinning fine. On the bike I used for a wet Paris Roubaix I had to replace the bearings the next day as they seized up in one ride, they only had 1500km (SR cranks and cups, the ones with no seals). So yes YMMV. I have the Park tool and it works very well, changing bearings is easy.

[oldpotatoe]

I have lamented before about the ineptitude of my LBS, so realistically I have to my own wrenching. I have no experience with external BBs, but do have experience replacing / rebuilding cartridge type and loose bearing square taper BBs.

I am considering buying an Campy Ultra Torque crank to replace the crankset that came on a complete bike I bought. My questions are:

*How often is bearing maintenance necessary and how hard is it? I am down to one road bike so I use it for everything, including commuting and sometimes get caught in the rain.

*Would I need to buy the Park CBP3 puller / setter for the UT bearings?

*Would it be much easier overall to just buy a used Campy crank that takes a square taper BB?

Thanks in advance for any advice.

*1-Install with lots of grease into the BB shell, into the cups, around the bearings..onto the hrth fitting, onto the crank bolt, little maintenance required.

*2-if you do change the bearings out you need some sort of puller and installer. I use a 2 armed puller(remember the wee 'C' clip on the crank spindle on the RH side spindle ONLY), and a Cyclus bearing installer..don't like smacking a cart bearing on. BUT the park tool works fine.

*3-Square taper are easy, no changing the BB bearings 'easily(can be done tho)..BBs aren't scarce yet but are getting expensive(Phil Wood still making them)

[SlackMan]

Thanks for the second round of comments. One clarification: Is it possible to flush and grease bearings well without pulling the cartridge off of the crank?

[oldpotatoe]

Thanks for the second round of comments. One clarification: Is it possible to flush and grease bearings well without pulling the cartridge off of the crank?

Not really. Ideally you would take both 'seals' off, flush, flush let dry, then grease, then seal back on(or what I recommend, get the bearings with 2 seals, grease, replace). The bearings are fairly unique 6805 bearings but 6mm in width rather than the more standard 7mm. Vecchio's has replacement bearings in the 6mm width, 2 seals, unlike the Campagnolo bearings that are one seal.

[summilux]

Are the UT bearings unique to Campy or can I get replacements from a bearing store?

[FlashUNC]

FWIW I'm going on year 4 of the same set of bearings in my Chorus UT crank.

Just pull annually and clean and throw some new grease on there. Still spin like when they came out of the box.

[oldpotatoe]

Are the UT bearings unique to Campy or can I get replacements from a bearing store?

If they have 6805/6mm..the 'standard' 6805 is 7mm width.

[summilux]

Thanks OP. Hopefully the bearing people can do it. Marinoni keeps a great inventory of parts here in Canada, but boy is it ever $$$.