PTW

I snapped my chain on my Touring Bike yesterday (again, not sure why).

I already have all the new bits, so I'm replacing chain, sprockets and big chain ring.

However, I noticed the (octalink) bottom bracket seemed extremely loose, so I unscrewed it (from the drive side). I know you're supposed to unscrew the non-drive side first, but as usual I don't have the all-important Shimano-specific tool for the job.

Once removed, to my surprise the bottom bracket feels absolutely perfect, so I screwed it back in, but the thread never tightens. It just keeps turning.

How can my bottom bracket threads have gotten this bad? What do I do now?

Any advice appreciated, because right now I'm not sure how to fix the bike at all.

All I can think of is to use piles of threadlock and pray.

Perhaps it can be converted to some other type of bottom bracket? The dimensions are something like 35mm internal by 68 mm long.

Turns out this thread discusses my exact problem:

http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/stripped-bottom-bracket-help

and yes, I too can turn the BB by hand, even when fully home.

I shall try some superglue on it for now, but looks like I might have to convert the whole crankset to square taper. At least St Johns Street Cycles look to have the ideal parts, and no doubt plenty of advice.

This was supposed to be a simple job...

I loved the Campag square taper bottom brackets and never had any problems even with the lower end stuff but I switched to Shimano last year and it looks complicated. New bikes aren't much better with many manufacturers substituting them for oversize BB30 and press fit jobbies. Worth looking at Spa Cycles as they are square taper stalwarts and have some good value triples and compact doubles as well.