Actually, I believe it was not a matter of nutted axles or those that took a conventional bolt, but the BB/crank model. Most Japanese cranks used a JIS taper, but the top models did not. Sugino Mighty and some other high end Sugino cranks used the Campy taper. Dura-Ace used Campy or perhaps in some years a taper specific to DA, but closer to Campy than to JIS. But most mid-priced Japanese cranks, like the Sugino Maxy, used JIS taper, whether they had nutted axles or "conventional" axles.
The conventional JIS axles are quite handy, as they will work with old French cranks like Stronglight and TA, which cannot use a Campy axle. A JIS axle of a given length will usually position a French crank 1 or 2 mm farther away from the BB shell than a genuine Stronglight or TA axle, but sometimes this is desirable. This tip was included in one of the old editions of Sutherlands.
I have almost no mid-priced Japanese cranks with JIS axles, but I've used a number of JIS axles or BB's with French cranks with good success.
It is exactly correct that a given axle will often work with thick cups in a 70mm BB and thin cups in a 68mm BB. That was pointed out to me by Bill Ward years ago, when he was still in the bike parts business.
Regards,
Jerry Moos Big Spring, TX
John Thompson <JohnThompson@new.rr.com> wrote:
hersefan@comcast.net wrote:
> My guess is that it probably wants a bb spindle of typical Campy
> taper that is just like the Campy pista spindle which at the end of
> production would have been a 109mm symetric. Good news is that there
> are many Campy loose ball bb's for modern cranks that were either
> 109mm or 111mm symetric. So any campy bb for a typical double from
> the early 1990's for instance will work. There are tons of these
> bb's out there - the best of which is probably the Campy Chorus loose
> ball. Really the same quality as Campy NR but with tick wall cups.
> I don't think the 111 vs 109 will matter much.
>
> Just be certain to get the 68 vs 70 correct and that you don't mix
> cups/spindles for thin vs. thick cups together. It is easy to score
> thick cups and then get a spindle for thin ones or vice versa and
> then be left with something that doesn't work.
109mm symmetric would be ideal; IIRC only Japanese nutted spindles used the odd taper; the regular ones that use a bolt should be the same taper as Campy. I know I've used Sugino Mighty Compe on Campy spindles and vice-versa without problems.
Re: the thick vs thin cups -- if you have a set of thick cups and a 70mm shell, you can often use a spindle intended for a 68mm shell and tin cups. Likewise a spindle intended for 70mm shell and thick cups can be used with a 68mm shell and thin cups.
--
-John "Frankenbike" Thompson (john@os2.dhs.org) Appleton WI USA