Tejeskeksz

Hello there!

So I have an old Peugeot road bike, and it is/was in a pretty bad shape and I also got some cool new road bike parts(like a drop bar etc), so I am renovating it.
As I already learned, all these old French bikes use the extinct French-threaded bottom brackets, so I ordered a sealed BB from Velo Orange, because I wanted to extend its lifespan with the reliability of the sealed systems.
Before this the older BB was noisy so I got it repaired without knowing anything about the French threads, but they apparently removed the cups and everything, and it is good, it is in place, but I don't think they have French-threaded ones here.
I also removed the quill stem(with difficulty btw) which is supposed to be 22.0 mm in diameter like every French bike, but it is 22.2 mm!

Could it be that this bike uses the standard British ISO measurements? From what I managed to dig up, it is from the late 60's or early 70's, so before Peugeot decided to uses the British ISO.

Chombi1 

Find out what year your bike was made.
After model year 1984, Peugeot abandoned the use of French and Swiss threaded bottom brackets and went to BSC (English) threaded BB's on their framesets.... at least here in the US market.....

Hudson308 

One way to determine the approximate era that your Pug was made is by comparing the decal scheme with those found in the catalogs here.
Narrowing things down from there might take careful examination of components and their date codes, if they're original. The stem you removed may even have a date code stamped on it.
The serial number can also help, but with caveats. Dating Peugeots using the serial number alone can be problematic, as has been discussed in numerous threads here on bikeforums and elsewhere.

Did I understand you to say that you don't think you have access to French components where you are? Where is that? Your location may help determine what market-specific feratures your bike has.

3alarmer 

...if you are intending on taking it apart anyway, because you are renovating it and it is in bad shape, all non drive side cups (the adjustable cup) are right hand threaded.
If you pull that side out first, you can take a standard threaded adjustable cup and put the threads alongside one another to see if they match up.

If so, you have so called British Standard BB. If not, it's either French (most likely) or possibly Swiss (very unlikely, but remotely possible).

IOW use a standard, non drive side, adjustable cup as a thread gauge to measure against what you remove on that side of your bike.

verktyg 

In the late 70's we saw a few Peugeot UO-8 bikes that came in for service that had British threaded pedals, freewheels and BBs. I suspect that they were made in Canada.

TOO MANY people immediately bring up Swiss threaded BBs when discussing Peugeots and Motobecanes. Perhaps I've lived a sheltered life but I can count on 3 or 4 hands the number of non-Swiss bikes that I've seen with Swiss BBs. I have 40+ French bikes and only 1 Moto and 1 Peugeot have Swiss BBs.

That said, I've seen situations where some hammersmith forced British cups into French threaded BBs, munging up the threads for both types of cups.

For the benefit of the OP:
French cups have metric threads and RH threads on both sides
Swiss cups have metric threads, the adjustable non drive side cup is RH and the drive side fixed cup has LH threads.
British cups have inch size threads, the adjustable non drive side cup is RH and the drive side fixed cup has LH threads.

For starters I think that it's safe to assume that Peugeots before 1984 have French BB threads. If you can't get the fixed cup out, try turning it the other way in the chance that it "might" have LH Swiss threads.

A few months back I was putting together my 1983 Peugeot PSV-10. I was thinking that a 1983 Peugeot might have British threads with a LH fixed cup so I turned it clock wise and it came right out. It was a cheap Peugeot branded BB with worn out cups and spindle.

I have a set of metric and a set of British threaded cups that I use as gauges to check BB threads. That's when I discovered the PSV-10 had a Swiss BB.





Fortunately I had 2 mismarked NOS Stronglight fixed cups with Swiss threads so I was able to put in a NOS BB.


verktyg

Kovkov

Most of my (swiss) bikes have 25.0mm French threaded Nervor steerers that take 22.2mm stems.

rhm

Well, OP says the bike is from the late 60's or early 70's. At that time I don't think any Peugeot left the factory with BSA threading.

But just to thoroughly confuse the issue, @Crank addict has an English made racing bike apparently made by Vic Edwards for someone on the Peugeot racing team. Peugeot graphics, but English threading.

Hudson308 

Wait... so we can't even rely on what's STAMPED ON THE CUP to determine what threads it has?!?!?

Chombi1 

Not sure if that Swiss cup was mismarked. IIRC, Swiss cups were also marked as "35 x 1" just like French cups, but was differentiated by concentric rings, either on the face of the cup or at the edge of the cup flange...

Salamandrine 

It was pretty common to see 22.2 stems shoved into french bikes. Doesn't indicate anything. Often there was enough slop to do it, and many stems are/were slightly undersized.

due ruote 

verktyg 

That's no too uncommon. The REAL French stem diameter standard is 21.9mm to fit into a 22.0mm ID steerer. You can't put a 22.0mm stem in a 22.0mm hole - well some hammersmiths can!

Classic Cinelli and 3TTT metric stems do measure 22.0mm as do some French and Japanese stems but most older French stems are 21.9mm.

I have at least 20 Nitto stems marked 22.2mm and they all measure 22.1mm! They fit in many French steerers without any modification other than a thorough cleaning and honing to smooth out the surface. A rolled up piece of 120 grit sanding cloth will work too.

Another thing, accurately rolling the ID and OD of a steerer tube takes precision rolling machinery. Up into the 1980's many bike manufacturers used cheap tubing or even seamed straight gage thin wall pipe rather than the steerers provided by Reynolds, Columbus or other tubing manufacturers.

Gitane used butted Nervor (not Nervex) steerers in all of their bikes throughout the the 70's.



At the same time Peugeot and Motobecane used seamed thin wall pipe with a split sleeve at the bottom on most of their models, even PX-10s and Le Champions.





CHEAP, CHEAP, CHEAP! A Centime saved is a Croissant earned!



My "all Reynolds 531" 1971 Raleigh Competition has a 25.04mm (not even 1' - 25.4mm) straight seamed thin wall pipe without a sleeve at the bottom for a steerer so it wasn't just the French!



In the past several years I've run across a number of French bikes with 1" diameter "pipe" steerer tubes: for example my 1972 Motobecane Le Champion and my 1983 Peugeot PSV-10. They all had French threads???

verktyg

verktyg 

Mark this day down, you were right and Chas. was wrong!

It gets more complicated now that I remember... About 10 years ago I bought 2 NOS cups on eBay listed as French. When I got them I found that they were Swiss, decided to keep them, just in case!

Newer style Stronglight Competition fixed cups had 2 wrench flats and were marked with the size. Swiss cups were the only size that had a ring in the face.



Older Stronglight Swiss cups had 8 flats and no rings vs. French with 8 flats and 1 ring.

French - 1 ring



British - 2 rings



Mystery - 3 rings ???



Sutherland's Handbook info is confusing/wrong.

verktyg