Originally Posted by
3alarmer
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...apart from the titanium/aluminum tendency toward galvanic corrosion, (and I do think this is probably what is going on,) I find myself wondering why you'd presume a Lightspeed frame, made in the USA and sporting a Shimano Hollowtech BB, would be threaded Italian ? That's not something I would conclude. I guess maybe Shimano made those cartridges in Italian version, but they didn't make many of them. I've never seen one in person.
I would certainly try some cycles of heat and cooling using a MAPP gas torch and Freeze Off before I let anyone go at that thing with a cutting tool. Also, when hot, if you drip some ATF/acetone mix on the thread seam between the shell and the cartridge, it penetrates farther. It bubbles a little and just disappears inside the joint. I'd like to presume your chosen mechanic knows all this, but a lot of those guys don't have substantial life experiences with dismantling old bikes that have been around the block, rode hard, and put away wet.
The frame was made in the USofA by Litespeed, but they made it for Eddy Merckx (in 1995 or '96 when Italian was still sort of a thing if not common), and an old catalog says it's Italian threaded and the BB shell measured 69.8 mm by my digital calipers, which is closer to 70 than 68.
I'm honestly not sure how much experience with this sort of thing the mechanic has. I just dropped it off at the local shop (I do most of the simple stuff myself) and didn't get to point to the oldest guy and say, "have him do it". I do get that there are probably some guys who have only ever worked on Carbon or aluminum stuff that isn't that old if they haven't been there a while (high end stuff has been pretty exclusively carbon for, what, 20 years now - that just makes me feel old).
Multiple cycles of heat and freeze off might help. I'm not sure how much time the guy put in it. I'd told him when he first called saying that the cheater bar didn't do it, that I felt I'd gotten a good deal on the frame and wouldn't have a problem going to maybe a couple hundred in labor if it was going to get it out.
I wrote the guy who sold it to me to see if he'd loctited or epoxied it in place or something (some people have done that with Italian threaded BBs because they're afraid that the axle turning in the direction will loosen it), but he said he'd bought it, found it wouldn't fit him, and sold it again without touching the BB.