Chris King bottom bracket with Campagnolo Ultratorque crankset

[chriscross1966]

Does anyone know which adapter kit I need to put a Campagnolo Ultratorque crankset (in this case a Chorus Compact Carbon, but they are all the same dimensions) into a Chris King bottom bracket? IT's going into a 68mm English threaded BB, though, once again, I doubt that makes any difference.

 

[S-Express]

Pretty sure that unless the Chris King BB is an original Ultratorque fitment (ie 25mm spindle) then it will be no use anyway. Why not just fit the correct Campag BB?

 

[chriscross1966]

Because the Chris King one is black and says "Chris King" on it..... My Brompton has an Ultratorque in it at the moment, but it will soon be getting a black Chris King headset, I thought it would be nice to match them up...

 

[S-Express]

Unless the CK was made for Ultratorque fitment, then there is no adaptor for it, I suspect. Fit a standard UT and then put some 'Chris King' stickers on it maybe.

 

[winjim]

Ultratorque is basically its own bottom bracket though, isn't it? To fit it to another type you'd need to pull the bearings off the crankset and then find some way of doing the job of the wavy washer, adjusting for BB shell width and preloading, which would get in the way of the bearings, and I'm not sure anyway if the face of the crank would be suitable. It doesn't seem practical to me and it ceases to be Ultratorque anyway.

I hate to say it, being a Campagnolo fanboy, but Ultra and Powertorque BBs do seem to me like an overcomplicated fiddly faff.

 

[chriscross1966]

I had to take the wavy washer out to get 2mm of shims under the driveside cup to stop the back of the spider fouling on the rear frame as it swings underneath when you fold. Looking at the Shimano adapter kit I think the bearings are made 25mm and have a sleeve for 24mm... so should fit the Campy cranks.... thankfully I have a spare frame I can set it all up on to play with before transferring it onto Henrietta. I can see why Campy put the wavy washer in, but being an engineer it just mildly offends me that they didn't produce a shim kit and instruct the installers to shim the thing in properly

 

[chriscross1966]

Unless the CK was made for Ultratorque fitment, then there is no adaptor for it, I suspect. Fit a standard UT and then put some 'Chris King' stickers on it maybe.

They make the same BB for everything pretty much and there are over 20 adapter kits that they make to put different cranks in... the Shimano adapter kit for the 68mm English BB looks like top-hats so I'm guessing they they're sleeving 25 or 26mm down to 24 and are also not the widest things on the planet.... which is fine by me, it will give me room to shim it over on the drive side, and I'm happy to make sleeves up if it needs sleeving down....

Was just hoping someone else had done it before me so I don't have to re-invent the wheel...

 

[winjim]

I bet you could put something together to shim it up to the correct width but wouldn't you still have issues with bearing preload, which is the other function of the wavy washer? You can't really do it using the Hirth joint since that needs to be tightened all the way, unlike say a HT2 which has the bearing preload adjusted on the crank.

I get what you're trying to do, putting high end components in silly places for a laugh, but if you're going to seriously compromise on functionality then what's the point? I'd use either all Ultratorque, or the CK BB with another crankset.

 

[chriscross1966]

It might come to that if I have to, but bearing preload as sold to us by crankset manufacturers is generally a load of baloney, I doubt I put out 200 watts on a good day, so treating it the same way I do a stationary engine and shimming out the end-float to sub 0.1mm but no binding will work, it's just a crank.....