Campagnolo Ultra Torque BB Cups
- Thread starter winjim
- Start date
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Graeme_FK
Veteran
- Location
- Wherever there are sick bicycles
The original ones were, JIm - more recent ones have been that harder, almost olive green colour - the originals sometimes shed their anodising, esp after a hard North European winter - the dark-anodised ones like yours are really durable, though ...
Graeme_FK
Veteran
- Location
- Wherever there are sick bicycles
Well, *quite* :-)
If it's UT and you are prepared to go without the internal lip seals, you *can* use SR cups which are black - that might be more in keeping with an overall "Classic" look but you will need to pay more attention to keeping the grease "bath" the bearings sit in, in the cups, refreshed ... especially if there is no drain hole in the BB shell of the frame.
If it's UT and you are prepared to go without the internal lip seals, you *can* use SR cups which are black - that might be more in keeping with an overall "Classic" look but you will need to pay more attention to keeping the grease "bath" the bearings sit in, in the cups, refreshed ... especially if there is no drain hole in the BB shell of the frame.
Graeme_FK
Veteran
- Location
- Wherever there are sick bicycles
Yes, that makes perfect sense.
The SR bearings run on oil not grease, so the seals - whose primary job is to stop debris (rust, alu oxide and the like) falling down the setube and sticking to and thus contaminating the bearing grease - wouldn't really serve a purpose.
The SR bearings can use oil as the balls are ceramic & the bearing surfaces are Cronitect, a purpose-developed stainless-type steel material. As grease in a bearing is used largely because it is sticky & stays in place, so it works well as corrosion control. Grease is just oil in a chemical soap as a thickener, so if the possibility for corrosion is mostly removed, the thickener in the grease can be removed, the bearing can run on the thinner, less persistent lubricant component - the oil. This results in a lower resistance to rotation - the lip seals would just add to that resistance to rotation but in such an application have little mechanical benefit - plus Campagnolo originally designed SR for racing cyclists who should be very fastidious about the maintenance of their racing kit, so keeping the bearing lubricant clean over long maintenance intervals should be less of an issue in this context anyway.
The SR bearings run on oil not grease, so the seals - whose primary job is to stop debris (rust, alu oxide and the like) falling down the setube and sticking to and thus contaminating the bearing grease - wouldn't really serve a purpose.
The SR bearings can use oil as the balls are ceramic & the bearing surfaces are Cronitect, a purpose-developed stainless-type steel material. As grease in a bearing is used largely because it is sticky & stays in place, so it works well as corrosion control. Grease is just oil in a chemical soap as a thickener, so if the possibility for corrosion is mostly removed, the thickener in the grease can be removed, the bearing can run on the thinner, less persistent lubricant component - the oil. This results in a lower resistance to rotation - the lip seals would just add to that resistance to rotation but in such an application have little mechanical benefit - plus Campagnolo originally designed SR for racing cyclists who should be very fastidious about the maintenance of their racing kit, so keeping the bearing lubricant clean over long maintenance intervals should be less of an issue in this context anyway.
