gitaneusa.com :: View topic - Franken-Interclub-stein

carlmorrell

Question: I ordered a replacement bottom bracket, French 35x1. The threads are deeper than the original. I was able to turn it part of the way in. But I am afraid of doing damage. I know 35mmx1 is very close to 1.375"x 24tpi. What a mess. Is it possible some 70s Gitanes were made with British specs? I tell you if you saw how loose the handlebar stem is, you might think 22.2 instead of 22.

Anyone have any advice? Should I just grease it up and cross my fingers?

Other than that, the Interclub rebuild is going ok. Frame is sandblasted, paint this weekend. A seat stay is slightly bent, no biggie. Bent brake lever, found a used one ebay. Bent lyotard pedal waiting for one to show up on ebay. Most parts are polished now. Just got a beautiful NOS set of Mavic rims in the mail today. Much nicer than what I remember. Must be better rims than the original Mavics I had.

Thanks for any help you can offer!

Carl

Frenchbuilt

Alas, you have the dreaded bottom bracket syndrome and are condemed to live your fate as have others knowing that there is only one cure but its lowly discovery shall elude you for many long and suffering days.

Such is your curse and, your destiny but fear not! Others have walked this path and have seen the light and can stop your plight into the confusing, dark and lamentable abode of French merde.

How can left have right and right have right when left is called for?

Put not hammer to metal and decend not in the utterance of the vulgarities of language and the ultimate destruction of all that is within your grasp!

Ask Chas.

carlmorrell

Thanks for the comic relief. Worst case is I will use original brackets. They are not pitted or grooved, just well worn. The new bracket does go in. The fixed side starts to bind the last 2mm, but is longer than the original. I need to clean the threads better.

I bought paint today. Have you see the NOS gitane on EBAY? I took a few of those pics to the paint shop as well as the frame. The frame does have some of the original paint inside the bottom bracket. Got a really close match. I was not married to the ugly orange that I remember.

I'll post progress pics.

Have a great weekend, Carl

Frenchbuilt

Actually its because you had Franken....stein in your post and I just finished the same evening the original Frankenstein story published by Mary Shelley in 1818. Interesting book and written in the same but much better style of my post.

Anyway, for all of my later Gitanes, I have been using Stronglight cartridge BB's with aluminum end caps. These are new and very cheap off the net and come in "British" and italian threads. The advantage, as I discovered, was that the aluminum goes first before damaging the metal BB threads.

And they come in various lengths.

But since you have French threads, you need something else to fit.

The middle '70's Gitanes sometimes came with Sugino Cranks and in French threads. This I have found to be better quality than the old Stronglight BB's and "seem" to screw in a bit better. I recently found one of these BB's and mixed it with some Mavic starfish cranks and had enough taper left.

Once you get a good pile of parts laying around, many experiments with mixing and matching work out OK.

Pitted races are not great to reuse but worn is OK and you can get things running pretty smoothly with new bearings and time in adjusting.

If the fixed cup is 2mm too long, you can grind off the excess length but maybe a newer cheaper BB in chrome plate might have some flake off.

Its surprising how dirty threads get but the bb threads don't get that damaged unless some idiot before hammered away at it or put in the wrong race.

Even loose and worn and pitted, bottom brackets last more than our lifetime. I see bikes used every day here in France running on pre WW2 grease and derailleurs that only get oiled from dirt splashed up from the street.

Dan