Galling: Keep an eye on your ti frame!

citizen-snips

Retro Guru
Had a fright this afternoon when trying to remove the bottom bracket from wife's Litespeed frame. I spent close on half of an hour trying, and even wrecking the BB cups machined teeth. Finally got it off after much panicking. It looks as though the BB's alloy thread had galled to the titanium BB shell judging by the residual white powder left. :shock:

The bike has been ridden year round but with a change of components for the winter months – my old 9spd Veloce group set and wheels used for winter riding – plus use of Crud catcher mud guards.

I only installed the centaur BB last Summer using a light coating of Superlube grease (and to correct torque). From now on will be using Copper Slip Ti prep paste regardless of riding conditions.

Just thought would make others aware that it can and does happen.

If the worse had of happened and BB could not have been removed are there any frame builders in this country that could actually work with titanium? There are none that I know of
 
Nice tip :)

There's someone in Manchester that repairs Titanium if memory serves me right.......

Shaun
 
Vernon barker, dronfield, Sheffield. Most of his work these days is repairing Ti. I've heard he does rectification work for litespped under warranty but don't know how true this is. Also been told he's soon to retire
 
Same thing but different.

I took on a bike last year that had a Mavic alloy threaded headset and a titanium fork.

Unfortunately, the previous owner had run the threaded headset into the steerer without any form of lube, and it took me a long time and an awful lot of effort to separate the two. I then repaired the galled thread in the headset using a looser fitting steel steerer and some fine valve seat cutting paste and then reassembled the two using a lot of lube, as not only does the hard titanium pick up the alloy (the original problem), but there is a long term reaction between the two metals, not as bad as with alloy and stainless, but as the op discovered, the two metals don't get along to well.
 
Back
Top