# Is S-Works crankset too narrow for Allez Sprint?



## thumper8888 (Apr 7, 2009)

Any of you early adaptors out there tried it yet?
Just had fitting it, and holding it up to outside of the shell, it looks like the teeth can quite fully meet... the spider seems to be holding it off too far, even without any spacers on either side....


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## 11spd (Sep 3, 2015)

thumper8888 said:


> Any of you early adaptors out there tried it yet?
> Just had fitting it, and holding it up to outside of the shell, it looks like the teeth can quite fully meet... the spider seems to be holding it off too far, even without any spacers on either side....


 Presume you are talking about the Hirth joint teeth meeting?

There is no reason it shouldn't work. Keep in mind the S-Works crank was designed to work for both carbon OSBB (narrow PF30) and alloy OSBB (std BB30)
A little known fact is...even though the shell of the carbon OSBB aka narrow PF30 measured 61mm, net spacing of Spesh's carbon OSBB is identical to BB30 aka 68mm. Reason is...the delrin bushings protruded by 3.5mm on each side. This was by design so Specialized could be 'special' aka proprietary to sell their replacement bushings. There was no good reason for this design which was ultimately discontinued. 

In summary your Allez Sprint should be reg OSBB aka BB30 and should be plug and play with S-works crank which was designed to work for both BB's because bearing spacing is the same.


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## Duke249 (Apr 4, 2002)

no problems with mine. I have an S-Works crankset on an Allez Sprint X2 frameset.


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## thumper8888 (Apr 7, 2009)

Duke249 said:


> no problems with mine. I have an S-Works crankset on an Allez Sprint X2 frameset.


Huh. Yeah, I'm talking about the Hirth teeth.
I just tried again, this time a proper effort, with the bearing cover included on drive side, and the tiny conical spacer and adustable cover/spacer on the non-drive side... all of these three pieces probably total no more than 2mm of spacing, something like that... and yet now the Hirth teeth don't even touch in the center.
The first thing I thought of, since i've dealt with differences in spiders width and dishing with both Rotor and Cannonade cranksets is that the spider, in this case one of the carbon ones, might be the wrong design, but I haven't seen anything out there about that, let alone different Hirth spindle widths. Whatever the issue is, it's substantial given that the teeth don't even touch with what is almost the minimal spacing possible. I could revert to a wavy washer on NDS and maybe get it down another mm or so.
Anyway, sounds like a problem for Specialized tech support, though they can be kind of nonchalant about stuff like this. LBS wouldn't be onto it yet since few to no sprints have gone through it.


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## 11spd (Sep 3, 2015)

You seem stymied. Glad you established that it is Hirth teeth and not chain ring teeth or even human teeth. So we have established you have a 'bad bite'...the bicycle equivalent of TMJ.
Can we ask where the Sworks crank came from? What BB did it come off of? Why do you think the spacers that came with the crank will work for your BB30? Teeth engagement is based upon spacing for left and right side.
Pics matter if you want better feedback.
Don't need any Sprints to go thru LBS for them to remain clueless. Desk jockeys at Specialized are almost as bad.
Good luck

PS. if you dig around the web, Spesh has service manual PDF's that show different spacer mix for different BB type for their hirth joint S


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## thumper8888 (Apr 7, 2009)

11spd said:


> You seem stymied. Glad you established that it is Hirth teeth and not chain ring teeth or even human teeth. So we have established you have a 'bad bite'...the bicycle equivalent of TMJ.
> Can we ask where the Sworks crank came from? What BB did it come off of? Why do you think the spacers that came with the crank will work for your BB30? Teeth engagement is based upon spacing for left and right side.
> Pics matter if you want better feedback.
> Don't need any Sprints to go thru LBS for them to remain clueless. Desk jockeys at Specialized are almost as bad.
> ...


Yeah, I've seen that service manual. It doesn't help... I did get a spesh tech guy on phone this morning. He seemed pretty knowledgeable -- he has a sprint that HE put an S-works crank in. He said that the only way it will work is if you leave off the thin adjustable cover-spacer on NDS and just use standard flat bearing cover from a standard BB30 kit plus a wavy washer, and then just the flat cover, no spacer on drive side.
So, the sprint BB clearly is wider than any other specialized BB. But that still doesn't help me. I mean, the teeth won't mesh enough even with no spacer of any kind, just the bearings.
I mean, I have put in probably 30 cranks over the last few years of at least six makes and models I can think of, including s-works... and Im familiar with all the silliness of spacers and pretensioners etc.
This isn't a spacer issue, it's something else ...and given that one poster here and the Spesh tech guy both have successfully put this crank in this frame, I feel pretty certain it's some large, obvious thing that I am missing due to my personal stupidity. But... not a spacer issue.
The crankset came out of a 2015 s-works Amira, owned by a woman who tried it at 172.5 and decided 170 was more like it.
The service manual you refer to shows the least thick spacer setup as the flat cover on the ND, conical spacer and adjustable cover on NDS. I'm trying less than that.
will effort photos tonight but only if I can figure out how they might actually show anything useful... I mean, a photo of the crank out of the bike with no spacersor in the bike with no spacers bottomed out on both sides of the BB is the story but photos of that wouldn't show anything enlightening...


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## 11spd (Sep 3, 2015)

Interesting dilemma thumper...sounds like you know what you are doing. If it isn't the spacers..then maybe check BB30 bearing width.

What kind of groupset are you running? Maybe consider another crank. Sworks cranks are decent but lots of good BB30 cranks out there. You won't have a problem finding a crank to fit that bike. Many BB30 cranks are now available with longer spindle that get spaced out to match up with traditional BB30...so even if your Allez BB is fractionally wide, you can easily space a long spindle BB30 crank to fit. You could even look into what crank Spesh ships on that model Allez.
Consider ebaying your Sworks crank and obtaining a replacement. I for example run a Shimano crank on one of my Campy bikes and love the combo. I am not beholden to matching groupsets including brakes either. I am not a fan of a removal spider crank anyway...prefer a fixed spider and would always choose a fixed spider crank to one where the spider can come loose.
Good luck.


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## bikerjulio (Jan 19, 2010)

I know nothing about this specific setup, but reading the thread and looking at the drawing I had a couple of thoughts:

Given that the crank might have been messed with, is it the correct spider lockring? Is it fully assembled and seated per the drawing? No spacers in there?

Are the bearings the correct 7 mm width?


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## 11spd (Sep 3, 2015)

bikerjulio said:


> I know nothing about this specific setup, but reading the thread and looking at the drawing I had a couple of thoughts:
> 
> Given that the crank might have been messed with, is it the correct spider lockring? Is it fully assembled and seated per the drawing? No spacers in there?
> 
> Are the bearings the correct 7 mm width?


Two excellent points...second point was a question I asked. If the frameset is brand new and shipped with fresh BB30 bearings from the factory the bearings are likely correct 7mm wide.

Which leads to the likely culprit...if the spider has been changed...perhaps for the reason of going to a compact bolt circle diameter. My general sense is if the crank won't bolt, it is related to spider spacing...perhaps wrong lockring or added spacer as you suggest BJ.


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## thumper8888 (Apr 7, 2009)

OK, following up with the resolution for all you folks who suffered through my posts. It was generally what I thought, a spider issue and my own stupidity.
The mechanic who the owner of the Amira had used had flipped the spider ring... i suspect not on the install (since it prob wouldn't have fit that bike either) but after taking it off and taking it apart for some reason.... and it ws firmly tight, not just hand tight.
This is possible because the spider is countersunk on both sides perfectly to take the lock ring... and it took me three stabs at it to figure out partly because of that and partly because both sides of the carbon spider are nicely finished. The alloy one, it's obvious which side isn't meant for public consumption.
All the clues pointed to something with spider ring, but first two times I tried to figure it out, to be fair, I only had a few minutes spare time... I dredged up photos but good ones didn't pop right up with whatever search words I was using...but I thought about it and finally figured it out without looking at it, and when I did, sure enough, it was fairly obvious. then I matched it with a photo.
The one good takeaway from all this -- other than the rare possibility another mechanic will do this to someone -- is the info from Spesh tech support that the right approach to spacers for this frame is just the two flat bearing covers and one wavy washer on NDS.
Putting that out there since inevitably someone will be building one up some day and wonder about the spacer issue.
Of course, once i solved this i had to deal with the fact that the carbon spider takes proprietary chainring bolts... Beggining to hates me some cranksets.
But it's in now.


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## 11spd (Sep 3, 2015)

Glad you got it sorted thumper and good catch to bikerjulio who knows his stuff.


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