Italian BB cups and query about Raleigh Equipe

James_CX

Dirt Disciple
Hi, I’ve just been gifted a 90s Campag crankset and BB which will find a home on my Concorde frame. The BB is English but the frame takes an Italian thread. Do I need a whole new BB, or can I reuse the axle and just find some Italian cups?
 
Also, I’ve bought a cheap Raleigh Equipe to harvest the decent condition 600 tricolour group set, bar and stem for my Concorde.

I’m assuming the group set is a later upgrade on that frame? It feels like the installer didn’t know 100% what they were doing, with all bolts tightened to 500Nm!
 
You would usually need a different BB axle if moving to italian cups, but sometimes you can get away with it, of the english thread cups are thin wall and the italian ones are thick wall, and you have enough threads to play around with on the NDS... biggest issue is likely to be chainring to chainstay clearance though. With cup and cone BBs sometimes trying different combinations will work out OK but not always. What chainset is it, and what BB length does it need?
I have no idea on the age of the Raleigh, could be that the bolts were just tightened down to much, or maybe installed without any grease so have seized, or maybe even just down to having never been removed in a very long time (or a combination of any and all of the above)
 
A Campag Italian BB should use an axle stamped 70 SS 120 if pre-1978 or if post-1978 either 70 SS or 70 SS 120 +1.0 +1.5. An English BB will have 68 in place of the 70.
Post 1978 cranks usually won't fit on pre-1978 axles but older cranks fit on newer axles no problem.
 
Cheers for the info, I got a decent Veloce BB in the end.

I removed and cleaned up the Shimano 600 groupset from the Raleigh Equipe, it’s definitely a later addition and installed by someone with no clue, although it seems to have done a few miles like this. It would’ve been quite a hairy bike to ride!

Highlights include:
- brake callipers installed with the long nut on the rear and the short nut on the front. So hardly any threads engaged on the front but a calliper that can move back and forth on the rear. At least they were tightened to 500Nm! Plenty of grease too.
- brake blocks only hitting half the rim, so no wear on the bottom of the block but nearly down to the wear indicator at the top.
- brakes installed Euro style with the left lever operating the front brake. Fine if thats how the owner liked it, but achieved by just switching the levers round! And one about 2cm further round the bars than the other. Again, tightened to 500Nm.
- front derailleur band full of paint pulled off a previous bike.

All in good condition though
 
I have front brake on left and think the British standard should adopt this too. Reason is that it allows you to signal for a right turn while descending and operating the most effective, IE front, brake
 
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