Singlespeed & Fixed Gear - Tool/Parts Interchangeability, Track Cogs and Cup-and-Cone Bottom Brackets

I've been thinking of building up a fixed gear with a cup-and-cone style bottom bracket (and possibly hubs), but I would like to reduce the number of tools I'd need to maintain it. With this in mind, I've been trying to think of workarounds that would allow me to use the same tool for multiple things, and I have a few questions that I hope can be answered here:

1. Can you use a track cog as a cup-and-cone style bottom bracket lockring? Would it be so wide that adjusting the cup becomes difficult (perhaps by obscuring the holes in the cup that the pin spanner goes into)?

2. Can a track lockring tool be used on a bottom bracket lockring, or the other way around? I've been told that this wouldn't work, but I'd love some other opinions and/or tests.

3. Could one use a pin spanner to adjust the adjustable cup (Park Tool's green pin spanner with 2.9mm diameter pins is the oft-recommended tool for this, but I wonder if their 2.3mm diameter red pin spanner would also work) and hold the chainring nuts when tightening/loosening chainring bolts?

4. Could one weld/braze a splined fixed cog over/onto the fixed cup of a cup-and-cone bottom bracket (the cog's splines might have to be cut out to do this)?

If someone could actually try to do these things (numbers 1 and 2, mostly), that'd be awesome. Other comments are welcome, too, of course.

it only takes a couple tools to work with a cup-cone bottom bracket, I don't see what's the hassle in getting them

While I already have cup & cone BB and the associated tools, I actually ditched that setup in favor of a cartridge BB. I just find it easier to work with those.

I've been thinking of building up a fixed gear with a cup-and-cone style bottom bracket (and possibly hubs), but I would like to reduce the number of tools I'd need to maintain it. With this in mind, I've been trying to think of workarounds that would allow me to use the same tool for multiple things, and I have a few questions that I hope can be answered here:

1. Can you use a track cog as a cup-and-cone style bottom bracket lockring?
You could, but why?


2. Can a track lockring tool be used on a bottom bracket lockring, or the other way around? I've been told that this wouldn't work, but I'd love some other opinions and/or tests.
Yes. Some lock ring tools, e.g. Hozan, are double-ended. One end is smaller to better fit the hub lock ring; the other is larger for the BB lock ring.


3. Could one use a pin spanner to adjust the adjustable cup (Park Tool's green pin spanner with 2.9mm diameter pins is the oft-recommended tool for this, but I wonder if their 2.3mm diameter red pin spanner would also work) and hold the chainring nuts when tightening/loosening chainring bolts?
I doubt this would work.


4. Could one weld/braze a splined fixed cog over/onto the fixed cup of a cup-and-cone bottom bracket (the cog's splines might have to be cut out to do this)?
Depending on the tooth count, you may have clearance problems with the crank arm. And welding/brazing on the cup would likely destroying the hardening, distort the bearing surfaces and otherwise compromise its effectiveness.

Like I said, I'd like to be able to maintain/adjust most of the components; if I could reduce the number of tools to do so through a careful selection of components and a bit of fiddling...well, I'd like to explore that possibility.

I figure I'd need/want to have a chainwhip and a track lockring tool. It seems that a track lockring tool might work with a bottom bracket lockring, so that would remove the need for a separate bb lockring tool. If it doesn't work, replacing the bb lockring with a track cog would, again, remove the need for a separate bb lockring tool, since I could use the chainwhip.

The bit about the pin spanner is not really an issue, just something that popped into my head as I was typing. However, I would like to find out which of the red and green Park Tool pin spanners works with the various self-extracting crank bolts out there; if I could use the same spanner on the adjustable cup and the 'caps' of the crank bolts, I wouldn't need a crank puller.

I understand that there is rarely a need to remove the fixed cup from a cup-and-cone bottom bracket (especially a British-threaded one, as it won't unscrew while pedaling), but I thought a cog over the cup would make a neat hack because the cup's wrench flats are (I've read) often quite shallow, and chainwhips are made to deal with tight/stuck cogs and freewheels. But I was worried, and rightly so, it seems, about damaging the bearing surface.

1. In theory, yes but as Mr. Thompson stated...why? It will take up a lot of space and it might make your crank arm rub on the track cog depending how long your spindle is.

2. I have the Hozan tool for track lockring, like Mr. Thompson stated, it is double ended and intended to work with both types of lockring. I have a Park bottom bracket lockring wrench that sort of works with my track lockring. Only one of the 3 prongs engage with the one of the notches on the track lockring, it kind of works.

3. The pin spanners have round tips, whereas chainring nuts are have flat slots.