Spindle Source?
 

I have an old Peugeot. please don't stop reading. i know its bad news but i love her. i need to get a 113mm spindle for my bb and can't find anyone selling them anymore. is it possible to rob a spindle from a cartridge? where might i find a suitable replacement. i am banging my head against the wall

I will assume your old Peugeot has french threading on the BB and a standard taper (not Ofmega or Avocet cranks).
You might have better luck finding a donor bike at a yard sale or on Craigslist... but for around $150 you can get a Phil Wood BB with French cups... click here for the Harris Cyclery page... THere are other sources for these, but this was the first one that popped into my mind. $150 may seem steep for a BB for an old bike, but if the bike ever gives up completely you can swap the BB to a new frame by changing just the cups.

If your BB is, in fact, English threading then you need only find any 113 mm spindle Shimano (or similar) cartridge and it will fit. Depending on how old you Peugeot is, it is likely not English threads.

And don't feel bad about having an old bike. Quality never goes out of style. ;)

yes this is a old enough p. that french threading abides. the phil option is there but more than i would like to spend.

is it possible to rob a different type of bb for its spindle? white industries for example http://www.whiteind.com/bottombrackets.html


just trying to avoid the nuclear (phil) option

No. Nearly all modern BBs are designed to use cartridge bearings, but your old French bike likely has cup-and-cone bearins... you need a spindle with bearing races machined in, and the one you mentioned only has shoulders to position the spindle relative to the inside race of the cartridge bearings.

well shoot. second thought. my problem is i am trying to put sugino rd cranks on this beast and they are bottoming out on the cups before they get tightened (thus longer spindles) is there a crankset with less back spacing that might work? this is a long shot

Funny... I looked up Sugino RD 5-arm cranks on SheldonBrown.com and he says they should use 103mm spindles! How long is your spindle now?

Is it possible you have a spindle with some taper other than the Japanese Industrial Standard (JIS)? What cranks were on it before?

outside dimensions are 110mm. I looked at the phils on sheldon's site and the picture makes mine look like iso's which i know would be a problem. but not 7mm worth. The axel/spindel says sugino ms-70 and then is stamped D1. i got the frame and bb on ebay together and am trying to cobble it back together as a townie

You should look for some Campagnolo cranks. I don't know what models would work with 110mm, though.

Dude, I feel your pain. One of my favorite bikes (of 8!) is a '75 peugeot mixte and can't get the headset right. It loosened up on me four times in one ride today, and I've taken to carrying a headset wrench in my pannier. Of course, no one makes this headset any more.

But getting to your problem. The BB is a concern I've fretted over as well. And I just finished putting about 15 hours into another '75 peugeot, where someone put a JIS (Shimano Biopace triple mountain) crank onto the french spindle (omg!). I discovered this belatedly, after trying to solve a shifting problem. The crank had a left/right wobble due to the inherent japanese/french incompatibility, and the Biopace has a up/down (out-of-round) rotation. When added, both effects are quite psychedelic! The FD didn't like it though.

There was a thread about this spindle/BB problem recently on bf. I'll try to find it and get back to you. Another source is my neighbor and Peugeot guru. He actually bought the expensive Phil Woods for one of his, but it was a 531 frame - a little easier to justify than mine. But he had another source. Oh yeah, I think he said Velo-Orange has at times carried something more reasonable, but it's not always available. Then, there's always ebay.

You probably know already that if the spindle you're using is ISO and the crank is JIS, that would make the crankarms position themselves 4.5mm or so inward from the position they would fit on a JIS spindle of the same lenght.
If this is happening, the effective spindle lenght right now is not 110mm, but 110 - ( 2 x 4.5mm ) = 101mm, so 2 mm below what the crank calls for, or 1mm on each side.

Think your best option is to get an UN72 of appropriate lenght (105-107mm?), remove the stock cups (ISO/english threaded) and put the body of the UN72 inside Phil Wood French cups, as Capt. Bike says on one of his pages.

I've got a french threaded frame where the BB shell was repeatedly ***** with English threaded cups by the previous owner, until they fit. The cup on the drive side is still 1mm away from being flush with the side of the BB shell because it won't thread any more, but the BB is holding itself in place very well.

thanks guys. i am now debating getting a un72 or phil and phil cups. And option two is finding a vintage iso campy crank. i have no idea what i am looking for there though. What are some models and how far back to i have to go to find campy cranks with iso taper?

There is a 118mm Stronglight spindle and French cups from a PX10 on eBay right now. Vintage Campy. T.A. and Stronglight doubles will work with it. I wouldn't say it if I hadn't done it myself.

Have you checked www.loosescrews.com for a spindle?