[CR]diagnosing a Campy BB problem.

With regards to the Campagnolo BB that the shop had difficulties installing, my first thought was that the most likely problem here is that the cups were for 1/4" bearings and the axle for 3/16" bearings. Something akin to trying to install Super Record spindle in Nuovo Record pedals. No matter who or what you do, the BB will never work properly. I then reread Scott's original post and then thought that he had perhaps provided the shop with the regular Campagnolo caged 1/4" BB bearings. I admit to having once sold an NOS Campagnolo BB with NOS BB bearings still in their original blue container with the yellow tape. Only upon assembly did the buyer realize that I had sent him some NOS Super Record BB bearings. It obviously did not work and I sent them the correct bearings.

As Tom Dalton pointed out there was a very short period in the 60's (I believe in 1963) when Campagnolo made BB for use with 3/16" bearings. I have one on my Zanardi that you can use to compare to the one that you have (see: http://www.wooljersey.com/gallery/Zanardi/BB_cup?full=1). Tom suggested that they are possibly worth quite a bit of money, a suggestion that I would agree to if the BB is complete and NOS; however, as parts, I would actually guess it to be worth less than the standard one due to the difficulty finding all the corresponding parts.

Two other Campagnolo BB also used 3/16" balls: the Super Record titanium axle one and at least a part of the off-topic C-Record range.

If the cups and axle are all correctly labelled as 3/16" and you are using cages with 14 3/16" balls, or 14 loose balls, I can't imagine there being any problems.

Steven Maasland
Moorestown, NJ