Sealth

I have a 3-4 year old wabi classic frameset that I built up. I originally had a SRAM Courier crankset (175mm crank arms and 48t chainring) with a GXP BB on the frame with no clearance issues. I recently decided to replace the crank with an IRD defiant crankset (165 mm crank arms and a 46t chainring). I bought a 68x110 IRD QB-55 bottom bracket to match (IRD says 110 bottom bracket for 42mm chainline).

I put the BB and crankset on today to find that the drive side crank arm has about 1mm or less of clearance off the chainstay (the non-drive side has plenty of clearance) which means the crank arm on the drive side will hit the frame while the bike is ridden. I find this so confusing for a few reasons.

First, the new crank has 10mm shorter arms, thus I would not expect the new crank arms to be hitting the frame.
Second, the courier chainring was close to the frame and the new chainring is much further from the frame. Although the IRD chainring surely has a shorter diameter it's not nearly different enough to account for how much better the clearance is. Why is the chainring clearance so much better while the crank clearance is worse?
Third, the Wabi classic comes with a 68x103 BB, which is miles shorter than the IRD 68x110mm BB that I got. Why are my cranks hitting if this is the case?

Considering these things, it seems really unusual that I would have this problem with the new crankset. Also, why are the clearances so different on each side of the crank? We entertained the idea of adding spacers, but it seems like there aren't enough threads in the frame to add enough spacers to fix this problem.

I need help figuring out what I should do about this. I could buy a larger BB (115), but then I'll end up with a BB larger than suggested for the IRD crankset and much larger than the BB suggested for the Wabi frame.

I would like anyone who has owned a Wabi classic to post what crankset and bottom bracket they had on the frameset and if they used any spacers.

ceelint

I have the RSCI/Andel cranks on mine.. 103 bottom bracket, no clearance issues. Might have put BB in backwards?

ethet 

I have a 2015 53cm Wabi Special, which I believe is geometrically identical to your frame.

Crank clearance has been a nightmare with this frame. I thought: "I'll throw a Sugino 75 on this thing today...", nope. This frame is just weird, it makes no sense. I feel like the only thing you can do is email Wabi and ask them if your combo will work... Hopefully they will respond.

I skew Japanese and a 103mm bottom bracket with a Sugino RD2 has been the only thing I have found that works with this frame.

Edit: The idea of wabi-sabi and the admiration of the asymmetrical, ill-adaptive, and aesthetically elusive seems to transcend ideology and find itself manifest in these bicycle frames.

Bigpond