yugdlo

Trying to remove the drive side cup off my motobecane bottom bracket. They're right hand tighten on both cups, correct?

ironwood

It depends on which year your bike was built. Some had Swiss bbs which tightened to the right. The last Motobecanes, mid eighties I think used English. The old ones used French.

wrk101

+1 Motobecane in particular had a love affair with Swiss BB. Several years were Swiss. I've had several Motobecanes from the late 1970s to the early 1980s, all had Swiss bb.


" Motobécane broke ranks with most other French manufacturers in the mid-70s, using Swiss-threaded bottom bracket"

sauze

My early 80's Moto had a swiss BB

yugdlo

Mine is a 75 Grand Jubilee. I'm 99.99999999% sure it's French because when I had the frame powder coated a couple years ago I took it to a shop because I did not have a 38mm spanner. the guy at the shop was trying to loosen it going clockwise, and then remembered what type of bike it was, tried it counter clockwise and got it off. I still don't have a spanner that big, and was trying a large pair of channel locks. (I was not trying terribly hard, I did not want to damage the cup). May have to take it to a shop again.

loose spoke

Ya.. channel locks won't cut it and you can mess up the wrench flats pretty easy.
I don't really recommend it, but as someone who lives in the sticks, you sometimes need to get inventive.
IF, and only if, you have a good bench vise with nice quality, square corner metal jaws, you can clamp the cup on the wrench flats in the top of the vise and use the bike as the lever. Again, very careful and don't apply a lot of pressure since you have a lot of leverage. With French threading, you would be rotating the bike counter clockwise as viewed from above.
-Tom

randyjawa 

For years, I have used a 12 adjustable wrench with good jaws, a 5/8 coarse thread nut, bolt and a couple of washers, and never found a drive side BB cup I could not pull, except for some of the lower end Raleighs...


With the wrench snugged up as tight as you can get it to the bottom bracket cup flats, finger tighten the 5/8" nut against the washer, holding the adjustable wrench firmly in place. This will prevent the wrench from slipping of the undersized flats of the BB. Now you can apply some pretty significant torque. The BB cup will move, sooner or late. Just keep trying, ensuring that the big bolt does not loosen up, and things should start moving. Once movement begins, try both ways. Doing so should help you understand which was loosens and you will not have to move things much to figure this out.


If you want a bit more detail in that explanation, feel free to have a look at Bottom Bracket Rebuild.

loose spoke

Randy's way is better than mine any day of the week, period.

yugdlo

[QUOTE=randyjawa;13886361]For years, I have used a 12 adjustable wrench with good jaws, a 5/8 coarse thread nut, bolt and a couple of washers, and never found a drive side BB cup I could not pull, except for some of the lower end Raleighs...

Thank you very much. I will give that a try.

miamijim

When facing the cups, left and right French cups uncrew counter-clockwise.

qd-s

Just like some British (BSC) cups do

(e.g. on my ca. 1963 Peugeot PX10)

"D." : destra, droite = "R." : right (direction of tightening)

yugdlo

Well with the help of a John Deere PTO, a come-a-long and some C-4.
Just kidding; the adjustable wrench and washers did the trick. Cup has been removed.