Fork and Torque..

One of the most satisfying exercises was the replacement of the headset using the Cyclus tools for driving out and pressing in the bearing cups. Good tooling really does it all. Pushing the upper bearing ring downward over the edge of the fork shaft only succeeds if executed completely straight and horizontally, so I used a stem cap which was left over from Tecnos 1. After it was pushed down over the edge, the Birzman crown race fixing ring and tube did the rest. The most challenging of all the parts to fit however, was the bottom bracket - crank combination, especially because this was Campagnolo Ultra Torque, which was totally new to me. Ingenious as it might be, I personally feel that 2 half axles held together with a bolt seems a bit insecure, compared to a crankshaft in 1 piece. But I’m no technician of course.  I chose the ”Inferior” installation method using Loctite, considering the special tool for flattening the bottom bracket shell too large an investment at this stage. I must admit I was a bit nervous here. My greatest concern was possible play on the shaft after mounting. With previous generations of bottom brackets, the desired tightness of the bearings on the crankshaft could be reached by loosening or tighten the bearing housing, but with the pre-assembled bearings on the Ultra Torque, there is no such possibility. The bottom bracket cups need to be mounted first, tightened, and after fixation, the 2 crank units have to be placed outside-inward and fastened together with a special bolt. At 42 Nm to be precise. Meaning everything needs a perfect fit with no possibility for adjustment. There is the crinkle thrust washer which compensates for the variation in bottom bracket shell widths found on various framesets, but I was somehow still worried that this would not entirely prevent play on the axle. So I was pretty much relieved to find a tight and perfectly balanced, smooth running crankshaft 48 Loctite drying hours later. The major challenges were completed now..