I first saw Phil hubs about then, and there was an instant "click" of recognition: that stuff made sense, and still does. I've used a lot of it over the years. But in relatively early years I'm aware of at least three "species" of Phil BB. The earliest ones had a sharp, square-bottom, notch just inboard of each cartidge bearing, to locate it laterally. A Beeeg stress riser, and I'm told there were a number of failures. The next generation used an aluminum sleeve glued (?) to the spindle, and exactly the same length as the distance between shoulders on the shell. There was also a generation fairly early on with the bearings integral with the shell, instead of separate cartridge bearings. I don't think I saw but a couple of those.
In theory, these Phil BB designs had a disadvantage, in that the bearings were a bit further inboard than on traditional cup-and-cone designs, but I've had great service from them. My memory is that the bearing is metric size that is relatively expensive. Sometime in the last 1970s, when I had access to a machine shop, I made my own versions of the Phil design (for a Town & Country tandem), and came to appreciate the design a great deal.
harvey sachs mcLean va.
Mark Petry wrote: Gene, the first Phil hubs appeared in 1970 and the bottom bracket in the following year. Both the hubs and BBs have evolved a bit over the years. The early bottom brackets used a different sleeve arrangement than the modern ones. <snip>