I removed the lh bearing carefully. I thought there would be some sort of split ring to keep it in place but nothing. So what's to stop them moving about?. There is nothing on the lh crank of mine e to preloaded the bearings or stop the lh side coming off. Have you got a photo of that?
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As Rampage says, the options are fairly limited to the IRD thing he sells or using your hands to preload the bearings. It's not too hard to get everything tight enough, you don't want to tension it up tight though, just so there's no movement. One way is to use a leather belt and pull it tight then tighten the crank bolt.
The key I have on mine is not to tension but to stop the crank arm falling off. It hooks on the crank arm bolt and then the key bit slips into a hole in the axle:
For security and ease, use the IRD thing in the link above!
As Pete says, compression pressure doesn't what to be high, too much and the bearings become damaged quickly. I use a headset press, but only just to "snugg" it together
The bearings are just a press fit in the frame, a little threadlock doesn't go a miss, again a headset press is handy to fit them
if they are original bearings there should only be a seal on the outside of the bearing and you'll find a mountain of grease in the BB
There should be a "key" as Pete's photo this keeps the arm from falling off, the IRD keeper is handy, just don't overtighten it
Oh yeah, the Allen bolt is Imperial size, just to make things interesting
After tightening the non-drive crank on with keeper in place, and riding a short distance, the n/d/s crank soon works it's way along the splines until it can go no further - resulting in plenty of side to side slack.
I notice/presume that this is because I don't have any spacers between crank and bearing housing (none received when I got it as far as I recall) to set the chain line.
Is there a particular spacer set available anywhere? Or will any spacer with suitable ID and width to suit do?
I must check if my spindle has been machined down to 22mm - which I think it has.