The left crank on a friend's trutativ rouleur crank (external bearings)
fell off the other day, about 5,000 miles after initial purchase.
Unfortunately I decided to get involved in the repair. When I put it
back on and properly tightened it with a torque wrench per the
instruction manual, the crank was tough to turn. I took it apart and
found the drive side bearings weren't smooth. I replaced both bearings
and, $50 later, the crank still has way too much friction when tightend
to 360 in/lbs. The SRAM webpage states that the initial friction just
means the seals need to wear in, but the amount of resistance seem to
me to be way too high.
Any thoughts on this? Some people have mentioned getting the bb shell
faced. I helped trim the shifting a few times over the past year and
do not remember noticing any unusual friction in the crank. I would
like to think that if the crank had as much friction then as it does
now I would have noticed, although I might have kept my mouth shut so
as not to rain on the $3,000 bike purchase.
jf