Clicking in my BB

[Ian]

I have an old vintage lightweight and my BB is starting to click. It does not happen with every rotation, only when I'm putting pressure. Any suggestion on what I might try to stop it?
Thanks<br />
Ian

[JonB]

Alex has a tutorial on overhauling bottom brackets, but I suspect something may have come loose in that area, or the bearings are worn. Either way you need to see his tutorial (note: it'll be overhauling bottom brackets, as i doubt you have a cartridge bottom bracket).
Have a go at that and see if that makes things better

[d36u9]

(12-10-2008, 02:03 PM)Ian Wrote:  I have an old vintage lightweight and my BB is starting to click. It does not happen with every rotation, only when I'm putting pressure. Any suggestion on what I might try to stop it?
Thanks<br />
Ian

By "vintage", do you mean it's not sporting a BB sealed bearing cartridge -- i.e., yours is the older cup-&-cone assembly? Maybe some of your bearings are fractured/worn already. Anyways, if you do happen to be using a sealed bearing cartridge BB, allow me to share my experience.

I had the same problem just last week. I use a Shimano Alivio crankset with an octalink BB. Just put my new bike together last December, and I've only been using my bike on paved roads, so it's unlikely that my BB bearings are already damaged or worn out, right? It started as a clicking sound that was in synch whenever I bear down on the left pedal. Then the next day, a bit of creaking started to mix in with the click. Then a day after that, the click became a knocking sound -- the harder I pedal, the louder the metal-on-metal knock. At first, I thought it was the left crank arm becoming loose -- so I tightened the screw to eliminate any creak. That didn't do anything. Next, I thought maybe the left pedal was faulty (new as it may be) -- tried replacing it with an older yet hitch-free pair which came from my older bike. No good. Lastly, I sprayed a bit of chain oil into the leftside lock ring of the BB -- the knocking sound slowly devolved into clicking, until it totally went away after another day.

This week, I decided to take off my cranks & its BB. I just finished cleaning out the inside of the BB tube -- there's a lot of rust on the dependent/bottom area of both BB tube & BB cartridge casing! WTF, I don't know how that happened (I've never biked with my BB tube / crank submerged in water). Maybe some water found its way from my under my seat, into the seat tube, and down into the BB tube on days that I biked in the rain. Anyway, I had to clean the rust out with WD-40, after which I spread some gear grease on the inside of the BB tube & on the body of the BB cartridge. Put some grease on the threads/lockrings as well, just to get a bit of water seal. So far, no more funny sounds.

Hope this works, should you try it. ^_^

[cyclerUK]

This may help:-
http://www.parktool.com/blog/repair-help/trouble-shooting-a-creaky-or-noisy-drive-train