oneclick 

I'm looking for a decent cottered axle solution. Good axles have nice bearings, all of the new stuff on ebay looks bad even though new, used won't do, and NOS is dear.


Sunrace make a cartridge cottered BB. SJS has them with english BB cups. Ebay has them with 35/38/40 press-fit cups. Both are for 68mm shell.


It's got real bearings, not a pair of chrome-plated round-ish places on a forged-and-forgotten bit of steel.


I have an italian shell. SJS says theirs takes "Shimano style splined cups", and the bearing outer dimension is 31mm.


Are Shimano (or anybody's) cartridge cups 31mm id and available or salvageable - if the latter what is a good candidate.


I have pretty close to zero experience with cartridge BBs. I've lead a sheltered life.


I can deal with the 68 vs 70mm.

J.Higgins 

Not a problem. There are a few different sellers offering Italian or French bottom brackets. Right off, I like Velo Orange quite a lot. Their products are decent quality, and I've had no complaints about anything I have purchased from them. Reasonable pricing too. Secondly, if you want the best of the best, look no further than Phil Wood. Any combination of threads and widths can be had here. You will pay dearly for them, imho, but you'll never need another one - probably - for the life of the bike.

Cheers!

dedhed

So you'd like to take a sunrace COTTERED cartridge BB, pull off the pressed on english threaded cups it comes with, find a (used preferably) Shimano cartridge BB with Italian threaded cups, pull off the pressed on Italian cups and install them on the Sunrace cottered BB unit?

I'd find a bicycle co op or the LBS and have them give you a scrap shimano cartridge BB (any thread) to see if the ID of the cups will fit the sunrace. If it's good, or at least close enough to shim or bore, then start looking for an Italian threaded one.

Salamandrine 

Italian cottered BB in a modern sealed unit? That's not something there's a lot of demand for. Nobody makes one AFAIK. I'm surprised Sunrace even makes a BSC cartridge BB.

Unless you want to pay a machinist to make you one custom, I think you're best off looking for a clean used traditional BB with good bearing surfaces.

Edit: I was going to suggest something like dedhed said, but i deleted it. Might work, might not. Lots of time and money spent if it doesn't. And it the end there is very little gained over a traditional unit.

I can't remember if French and Italian cottered BB spindles even have the same OD as British. If they're different obviously it won't work. Anyone remember or know? It's been decades since I worked on this stuff regularly, and I don't have a Sutherlands to look it up on, or any parts to measure.

JohnDThompson 

I've found that Phil mounting rings will fit on some other manufacturer's cartridges, e.g. SunTour, Edco. The Phil rings are available in Italian and even more obscure thread specs.

repechage

As I recall the differences are in the cotter flats. But cotters can be filed.

i was looking at this issue too, I have an old Italian cottered crankset and wanted to investigate finding a bottom bracket that did not break the bank. Tough. IRD makes Italian retainers for their cartridge BB’s, but don’t sell an Italian assembly. The cups are not cheap. Around $50.

where I stopped was needing to verify what length of spindle I needed. I will resume referencing when I have determined that.
the cottered era went through a number of dimensions depending on the number of cogs in back, single or double, brand of crank.

English was out unless you were willing to use later Nuovo Record cups or mismatch with one record cup,
that was all in regard to traditional assemblies.

Sutherland’s 3rd or 4th ed may have info, the earlier ones don’t

repechage

yes, I bought a French bike with what looked like a Phil bracket, only to find a stronglight spindle and bearings inside.

Salamandrine 

It turns out Sheldon comes to the rescue again. The info is archived on his page. https://www.sheldonbrown.com/cotters.html

"French cottered spindles have a diameter of 15.5 mm (0.610") and most others, 0.625" (5/8")."

Does most others include Italian? I'm not sure. If it's just a few thou as above, then an 0.625" spindle could be sanded down easily enough if necessary. Best if done on a lathe though.

FYI British and Japanese cotter pins are 9.5mm. French are 9mm. IIRC Italian are also 9mm, but can't remember for sure. Fewer of those around BITD.

OP: if the goal here is an easy solution that you're familiar with, then you're barking up the wrong tree. As I said before, a traditional BB is going to be much easier to deal with than trying to customize a cartridge BB, especially if you're new to this.

oneclick 

Exactly that.

Salamandrine 

Just to add some more info. Shimano shells are 31.0mm where the cups press on. Phil are 33.0mm. I just double checked. If Sunrace are 31.0 as you say, it could theoretically work.

That leaves only the issue of whether the width will match up closely enough. (and the spindle diameter, and the cotter pins... )

Unfortunately, Shimano don't AFAIK make a UN55 with Italian threads. IRD maybe?? It's also worth mentioning that the fixed side cup of a UN55 doesn't come off. I think Shimano used to make it in Italian, so perhaps you could find two of them used, and pilfer the removable cups. (since side cups are RH thread on Italian.)

Correction: Shimano still makes the UN55 with Italian threads. Probably fairly rare though.

Last EDIT: looks like that Sunrace is made like a Shimano, and the fixed side is fixed. Therefore the idea is a non starter. Sorry.

dedhed

Seems like a reasonable experiment to me.

If a person could find out what bearing # the sunrace and shimano BBs use you could look up the OD of the bearing. That would tell you if the cup ID was the same (or close). Smaller on the shimano would be better than bigger. Should be easy enough to find a guy with access to a lathe to get a cup bored out for the universal currency of beer. I've knocked the cup off an old cartridge, it's not difficult, the problem is most people just toss them out so they're typically not just laying around.

J.Higgins 

Aw sheesh. Disregard my comment. I mistakenly thought cotterless.

dedhed

The way I'm seeing it the problem is Shimano puts the bearing inside the cup and sunrace puts the cup outside the bearing.
While not a deal breaker, it complicates any easy peasy swapping like press on press off.
You might have to look at Italian alternatives to Shimano like Chin Haur.

https://www.chinhaur.com.tw/upload/1493277293_9473.pdf

Shimano does make them in Italian.
https://www.universalcycles.com/shop...s.php?id=44899

oneclick 

Sunrace is 31mm od (was in my first post).

unworthy1

A little unclear about how the Sunrace model BBT 08 (pictured above) which appears to be sold as "40mm, 35mm or 38mm" differs from the BBT-08 1.37 model. They both seem to come in ONLY a 136mm spindle length and both intended for a 68mm BB shell, but if BOTH cups pull off the BBT 08 models then you might be in business. If the cup ID is same as Shimano (or another brand that has Italian thread units) just get TWO donor Italian NDS cups (since both shell sides are RH thread) and you just need to fix the cup (maybe both sides?) with something like Locktite assuming you won't have threads-room for a lockring. But if that DS "cup" on the BBT-08 models are not removable (as looks to be the case on the BBT-08 1.37) then you are out of luck I think.

dedhed

Dug through my "box o crap" and for some reason I kept the old Chin Haur CH 52 out of my hybrid. Knocked the cups off and measured them.
Big ID on the cups of 30.7mm - 30.9mm, small ID 23mm - both cups using my cheap Harbor Freight calipers. Bearings in it are marked 1583110-2RS which are listed as 15.8mmX31mmX10mm.

oneclick 

Good, that's a Sunrace match. Can you measure something else - the depth of the well in the cup(s) that the races sit in; I'm hoping it is enough that I can put a 1mm spacer under each race and so use a 68 in a 70 shell.

dedhed

I can do that tonight

dedhed

The HF calipers don't have a depth function but on my good Mitutoyo imperials they're both around 0.52-53" so approx 13+mm in depth to the step, which makes sense to completely cover the 10mm wide bearing. Caveat - The Chin Haur I have is English threaded. YMMV.

dddd

Cottered cartridge bb, who knew?

oneclick 

Here's what I go - the cups pretty much slide off and the axle measures 15.75 to 15.80mm. The pin slot is wider (at the chord) than the 9mm pin hole in the crank I'll be using. Lots of clearance. It'll be a nice user solution for a cottered crank, decent replaceable bearings.

Salamandrine 

That's pretty cool. So both cups do come off. Now all you need to do is manage to scrounge two Shimano Italian threaded adjustable cups. Sounds difficult but not impossible. Did you verify the OD of the bearings is 31.0 mm?

dedhed

Looks like Chin Haur lists a part # for the cups separately. You just need to find how to get them.

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