Classic & Vintage - Crown Race Removal... the hard way.

Today I took my early 80's Gazelle down to a local frame builder's shop to have the headset replaced. The old Zeus steel headset was in bad shape both inside and out. The races and bearings were causing a very bad case of indexing. I purchased a new Campagnolo Record 1" threaded headset from ProBikeKit and headed down to the shop where the right tools would hopefully make the job easy.

The cups came out with just a few taps with the Parktool's cup remover and then it was time to pop off the crown race. Unfortunately the crown race remover was missing in action, but no worries, a few taps of a hammer on a punch later and it would be off right? Wrong. We start with a few taps with the smaller hammer. Then some more. Then the swap to the bigger hammer. Then more. Stepping back it was obvious the race wasn't budging. Even if we had the proper remover, it wasn't going to help this situation any.

So it was time to break out the power tools. I wasn't planning on ever reusing this headset so destorying the race in the process of removal wasn't going to bother me any. I just wanted the new headset on the bike and the bike out on the road. First the dremel comes out and two notches are cut in the backside of the race. More pounding in attempts to break the notched section free. Nada. More cutting, more pounding, back and forth for the better part of a half hour. Next the bigger grinding/cutting wheel comes out and the sparks REALLY start flying.

More pounding and a little more grinding later we can finally see just a little bit of sunlight showing between the race and the fork. The first positive sign of the day so far. Finally, what what looked like the last good tap before taking another break, the race breaks free and drops down the steerer tube. Thank goodness, it was off and the installation could proceed. Here's what the race looked like after we got it off (and a little ceaning)

http://jonpfischer.com/UploadPhotos/tn_P2041962.JPG

http://jonpfischer.com/UploadPhotos/tn_P2041963.JPG

http://jonpfischer.com/UploadPhotos/tn_P2041964.JPG

And finally a shameless plug for David at Southwest Frameworks. He went way above and beyond on this job. Headset replacements shouldn't take 45+ minutes, but he stuck with it and never said that he couldn't get it off.

Any possibility someone installed an ISO crown race on a JIS fork? That would explain the great difficulty removing it.

No way, the bike is a Dutch built Gazelle, headset a Spainish Zeus. Just 25+ years of use and it never being removed. I pride myself in keeping up a pretty good maintance schedule, but this headset was installed on the bike when I purchased it.

Suppose I should have snapped some shots of the newly installed Record to show off. Perhaps tomorrow. We did end up taking a few mm's off the steerer tube as the new Campagnolo headset did not have as high of a stack height as the Zeus it replaced. It certainly is nice to have a headset that is smooth enough to actually have problems keeping the wheel forward while on the rack. I really can't wait to get the Gazelle out on the road, hopefully tomorrow night I will have time to get out on it.

Hah! Good story. I've often found myself in those repair situations that seem to escalate to power-tool levels. Glad it worked out in the end.

Attached is a pic of a Viscount crank arm that had its puller threads stripped. The next step was hacking and banging. I do have a replacement, fortunately.

Neal

A cheap 3 arm puller will usually do the job on stripped cranks - something like this (note - the arms are reversible, so that they grip an object inside them, rather than outside, as in this configuration):

http://www.machinemart.co.uk/images/library/products/large/040211219.jpg

Hah! Good story. I've often found myself in those repair situations that seem to escalate to power-tool levels. Glad it worked out in the end.

Attached is a pic of a Viscount crank arm that had its puller threads stripped. The next step was hacking and banging. I do have a replacement, fortunately.

Neal

That looks vaguely familiar Neal. :p At least it confirms I wasn't nuts for not being able to get it off. :)

And finally a shameless plug for David at Southwest Frameworks. He went way above and beyond on this job. Headset replacements shouldn't take 45+ minutes, but he stuck with it and never said that he couldn't get it off.

+1.......When I sent my Centurion Pro Tour frame to southwest frameworks to have the chainstay bridge replaced and to have a couple of water bottle bosses installed on the seat tube, David was extremely nice and helpful. The price was very reasonable, and I was surprised when I got the frame back that he had done the repairs and for no extra charge primed and painted the repaired areas, using a paint he said he happened to have on hand that matched the color of the frame. Definitely a good guy-

A cheap 3 arm puller will usually do the job on stripped cranks - something like this (note - the arms are reversible, so that they grip an object inside them, rather than outside, as in this configuration):

Hey, but then I don't get to saw and hammer! Actually, given the pressed in sealed bearings on the Viscount BB, I'm not sure a puller would have worked as there was no fixed cup to provide force (i.e., the bearing cartridge would pull out as well). But I do have to get one of those pullers at some point when I have this problem with a conventional BB.

Neal

WOW! I had some stubborn crownraces, but never one THAT bad (shudder). Guess this is the fit you can get when the extreme ends of the spec range come together. I have had stuck seatposts that took power tools, torches, chemical warfare and heretical cursing...but a steel race on a steel steerer never got that bad for me. Congrats on winning this one!

Yeah, I was getting a bit worried, but David never waivered in his determination. The new Campagnolo race went on with only a few good taps on the Park Tools installer so I imagine a lot of it was just a good 25 years of use. We even tried getting on the race with a few large wrenches to try to give it some twisting action to break it free but nothing could get a grip on the smooth metal of the race.

If you look closely at the area that was ground away, you can see that the remaining metal finally did crack most if not all the way through. (Dark line in the second photo) You can see the crack better from the inside of the race that's not visible in the photos. Don't know when that finally formed, but in any case it probably helped free the race.

I'm glad I decided to take this one to David, he had the 1" tube blocks to put on the steerer tube before putting it in a vise to make sure there was no damange to the tube. Had I gone at this myself I would have likely damanged the fork before I gave up. Hopefully when I take the bike back down to David this coming fall we won't have nearly as much trouble with this new race when the bike gets stripped for painting.

So, the moral of the story I get is; Put away your tools! You can't use what you cannot find.

That's why I like the Campagnolo tool kit, a place for everything and everything in its place.

Well almost, Campagnolo did not update the kit often enough at the end to place the "newer" small tools such as the 50th dustcap remover, Campagnolo twisted prong freewheel insert for the freewheel tool and the C Record hub dust cap extractor.

And yes, there never was a home for the swivel head pedal wrench.

David apparently loaned out his remover. But after a good 30min of work, we pretty much realized the remover wouldn't have done the job regardless. That and he had just rearranged his shop some so where things were, they no longer were in a few cases. But in the end the job was done and the Gazelle is ready to get out on the road tonight. I have a brand new set of tires on it I want to test out. A big step up in the rolling rubber from the last set so I'll be interested to see how they perform.

A cheap 3 arm puller will usually do the job on stripped cranks - something like this (note - the arms are reversible, so that they grip an object inside them, rather than outside, as in this configuration):

http://www.machinemart.co.uk/images/library/products/large/040211219.jpg
Wow, another torture instrument straight from the Spanish Inquisition!!! That looks VERY scary.