Campagnolo spindle in shimano BB cups?

[foz]

Is it possible to fit a campagnolo BB spindle into Shimano cups? I've just pulled both my french threaded BBs from their respective frames, and all four cups are in good condition. Since I want to install a campagnolo spindle of the correct length, I can use the campagnolo cups. But I'd like to know if it would be worth keeping the shimano cups too, as a spare set? Is the bearing spacing the same? What about bearing size? Is it possible?

Thanks, Andy

 

[Old Ned]

There are different types of Campag axles and correspondingly different types of Shimano cups. For example, not all Campag axles will work with all Campag cups because of varying widths over the bearing surfaces and thickness of the 'outer wall' of the cup. The same applies to Shimano. If you can find a 'Shimanolo' combination that allows the cups to fit into the BB shell correctly using the correct size bearings then all should be fine.

I'm sure I'll have done it in the past when I wasn't so clued up on the minutiae of retro components, especially when building a winter bike.

 

[foz]

Thanks Ned! I think after measuring the two that I have, that they won't work together, but maybe fiddling around with different spindles, cup adjustments and bearings would produce something decent enough. I don't need to do it yet, thankfully!

 

[foz]

And how about the other way around? I've just stripped a vitus 992, which was built with an almost complete ultegra 6400 groupset. The BB had campagnolo cups (english threaded, so 68mm BB) and a dura ace 68-W spindle (112mm I think it should be, I didn't measure it yet). I'm not sure if the bearings are campagnolo or shimano, or what size they are. I thought a combination like this wasn't possible, but I guess it must be!