Spite and Malice
 

So I'm building this fixie out of a sweet ass Peugeot corse and **** consistently seems to be going wrong. Not big ****, just small enormously inconvenient ****. For example, my cranks just don't want to take pedals, standard or french. That pisses me off. It's like having a gorgeous race horse just regally occupying a corner of my apartment, with no ****ing feet. Since I spend my day doing data entry I'm using this as an excuse to scour the forum for other stories of discontent and spite.

Hit me.

your problem is that the bike is french

No no, I think you missed the point. I don't really want advice, that would be far too practical. I'm just opening a public forum to ***** about the small nuisances that make life just that much more interesting. However, I do share your contempt of the French and their quest to make my life more difficult through minor inconviences.

when I was a young lad I thought the song went: "I've been to the desert on a horse with no legs..."

Slow goin then?

No, I think he means that most french bikes and components are threaded differently than others. This might be why your pedals wont go on.

No I know that French bikes are threaded goofy but french pedals don't work either. It's labeled for standards but I think the dude I bought it from stripped them or cross threaded it or something.

yeah, I had the same problem with a Peugeot i converted for a friend.
the pedals would not thread so we just forced them in there with some serious leverage on the wrench and the steel pedal threads being harder than the aluminum crank arm made their own new threads.
Luckily they went in straight and are still turning smoothly today.

I had a great crankset(that I pulled off a dumpster bike) that I was going to put on my single speed but the ****** who put the pedals on previously must have loctited the drive side pedal and then when I was trying to take the damn thing off I sheared the pedal spindle right in half so now I have no way to get the damn spindle out...and more importantly a useless set of cranks

I could write a 30 volume encyclopedia :mad:
Guess I need to settle down a little bit. :o

Yesterday I was trying to put on new bars and stem when one of my ancient brake levers decided to spontaneously spring apart. Had a horrible time getting it back together. Of course I reinjured an already injured finger in the process. Spite and malice!

Jay you're the freakin man, thanks. Lb, aint that a *****?

It's possible that they just didn't use any grease and galvanic corrosion seized the threads. Is there a hex head cut into the backside of the spindle? You might be able to get a cheater bar on a hex wrench to break it free.

I've totally played the forced-threading thing. In fact just last week I was fixing the neighbor kids' little 16" Toys-R-Us bikes and one of them had a pedal and crank that had been pretty badly crossthreaded and consequently fell out.

There were some good threads at the bottom of the spindle though, so I just lined it up as square as I could eyeball it and got the wrench on and worked it down. It was a pretty serious grunter, I think in large part because it was a steel one-piece crank, so the threads weren't probably doing a lot of cutting. Mostly I just mashed it all together, but I'm hoping the good threads at the end chased the messed up threads at the start of the cranks.

Think I should re-tap the threads or just rock'n'roll it?

I got a sweet set of Gipiemme (sp?) cranks with one pedal seized on. Sorta the opposite problem.

It depends, If you've got the right tap available or want to buy one and rethread, do that. it's the right way to do it.
If you're like me, super impatient and willing to take a chance, just rock 'n' roll.
allthough, you do have a pretty good chance of ****ing up the cranks with the rock 'n' roll method.
it's a little scary when you're forcing the pedals on and the aluminum shavings start coming out.

Yeah my beef with retapping is that it costs like $30. At this point in time 30 bucks is a few days of food. How worth it is it? I am willing to drop the cash if it is. Also can trackstar do it? I know the dude on 6 bet 1/A and nycvelo can.

[QUOTE=bostontrevor]It's possible that they just didn't use any grease and galvanic corrosion seized the threads. Is there a hex head cut into the backside of the spindle? You might be able to get a cheater bar on a hex wrench to break it free.

It could be galvanic corosion I don't know, but it was definitely stuck in there real good...when I sheared it off I had the crank arm in a vice and was using a 2 foot pipewrench.... unfortunately there is no hex head in the back either....plus I already screwed it all up trying to use concentrated acid(I'm a chemist) to remove whatever was holding the damn thing together but I used the wrong acid and it ate up the aluminum instead of the steel...spite and malice

I don't know much about retapping, but you have 2 options: to pay to have it done the right way, or jamming those pedals on yourself for free... which could very well work, but you'll be stuck with those pedals on those cranks ( you might be able to get them off)... or if you mess up installing the pedals the free way, you will end up payinbg later for new cranks, pedals, whatever. so long term, it looks like spending the money is the right way to go. or just rock 'n' roll and force those pedals on there.

i have a similar sexy french racehorse idling in the corner of the room. she's lovely (nice rake!) but her headset is shot and the cottered cranks are too long and stuck with a strange 40-52 ringset. also i have bashed the hell out of the driveside cotter and failed to get it out. it was a dumb impulsive thing to do, i probably cashed out the BB bearings in the process. i guess i'll move on to the drill-out-the-cotter part next...she's so sexy and french, we were thinking about giving up and buying another cheap bike but its' summer and they're all overpriced. so, it's a learning experience I guess.

Ouch that's a bummer man. Impact adjustment only works up to a point.

Just the other day I got caught with a flat tire, not just the tube, the whole tire has about a 2" gash through it and I have no idea what I did. Needless to say, I had a spare tube, but I don't carry tires around. So I walked 5 miles to my friend's house with my bike and proceeded to but a similar gash down the middle of my finger trying to open a can of ravioli with a stupid can opener. Insult to Injury.. Or rather Injury to Insult.

I did get the ravioli out, so there was a positive side...

i love french bikes.

so do I, but mine indirectly caused me much pain and bleeding and cleaning ravioli goo off of places i'm amazed it got to.

All the Peugeot models labeled "Course"-- there are at least three different ones, of vastly different quality-- came with cranks that took English pedals. Threads might be shot. Too bad, those were nice stronglight cranks on at least two of the models, I forget what was on the third offhand.

Your bottom bracket may be swiss, just to give you another nationality to curse at. Thought you might want to spread the spite.

I am completely in love with French bikes. At last count I had six up and running, plus a 531 Gitane frame and a 531 Lejeune frame waiting for my attention.

On weedeater's cotter, you may just have to drill the @#$% thing out. Sometimes it's all you can do.

I'd help you out, but it aint happening geographical-like.