I have a carbon frame with an Italian threaded bottom bracket which is misaligned. The BB cubs thread into the frame just fine, but when I put the crank in place, it doesn't spin as freely as it should. There is also a bit of wear on the crank spindle where the non-drive side bearings touch it. The crank spindle is all black except where the non-drive side bearings meet it, where the black has mostly worn off and is now silver. There is currently a new Enduro stainless steel BB with angular contact bearings in there with a Rotor Aldhu 30mm crank. I replaced a fairly-worn Rotor BB with that Enduro BB and the crank friction was the same with the Rotor BB (NOT angular contact) in place as well. That Italian Rotor BB doesn't even have seals, so it's not the seals rubbing. I tried putting another Rotor 30mm crank in there (3d+) thinking that maybe the spindle on the Aldhu crank was the problem, but had the same result. I have the preload nut properly tensioned on the Aldhu crank. Loosening the preload adjuster to have a little bit of play does make it run smoother (I don't ride it like that - just testing), but there is STILL more friction than there should be. I also have a GXP BB / crank that I tried which had the same issue in the frame - just didn't spin as freely as it should. If I put the exact same BB / crank (any of the ones I mentioned) in another frame, an old steel frame in this case, it spins freely. Is it possible to reface an italian BB in a carbon frame? I had a steel frame with a BSA BB which had a worse alignment problem than my carbon frame does which I had refaced, and the difference was huge! It spins much better than the carbon frame. I brought the carbon frame to the same local bike shop that refaced my steel BSA frame, but they didn't believe it was possible to reface the carbon frame. Thoughts, other than sending it to Hambini
? The OCD part of me just hates the notion of a misalignment on a crazy-expensive frame causing crank spindle wear / increased crank friction (I wouldn't THINK any more than a 1 or 2 watt penalty) / excessive BB wear. This frame was a warranty replacement because of a stuck seatpost, so while the obvious first step would be to contact the manufacturer, I just can't get myself to do that for moral reasons. My local bike shop already worked to get my original frame warrantied, so I don't want to get them on the black list of the frame manufacturer.
Thanks,
Dave