In addition to the hubs, the bottom bracket on the Palo Alto needs to go. I'm pulling it apart, perhaps I should have remembered this but although the crank arms are Avocet, the BB is clearly Brev Camp. Markings on the cups say 36 x 24T, so Italian, correct? My 1974 Sutherland's book says the fixed cup is right hand thread... would the Italians have persisted in this as late as 1980? Seems odd on a non-French bike. Regardless, it's really in there, I've almost always been able to break them loose with a gigantic adjustable wrench but, unless a couple more applications of PB Blaster do the trick, I might have to resort to LBC help.

If I get it all out OK, hoping to swap in a Velo Orange BB, I see they offer an Italian one.

Be sure to secure the wrench to the spindle so that it's doesn't slip off of the flats!

Find some spacing material and some really big washers. Then use the crank bolt to hold the wrench on securely, they always try to slip off and then the cup becomes much harder to remove.

Colnago went to English thread on their Italy built bikes in 2009. I cried a little on the inside when that happened.

go for the sheldon brown big bolt, washers and nut method IME it works really well

https://www.sheldonbrown.com/tooltips/bbcups.html

Yes, Italian, right hand thread. (And it's so tight because less than really tight and it will unscrew. In my French BB days I used to hang my bike on its side over the bench vise, clamp the vise on the fixed cub and use the frame as my wrench.)

Spaghetti Legs, the Colnago going to English BB means that your treasured frame has life after BB thread damage. Going English to Italian to save frames has been happening a long time. I've never done it, but I may need to in the future.

Ben

^^^ Proper care and maintenance taken would negate that ever being a concern. R+R BOTH cups, clean, lube and properly torque during any regular service and you will never encounter such a thing.

Me too! I did not learn this until just a few months ago. It is like they "caved" to the pressure.

Dean

Big bolt with nut, a couple washers, one a fender type washer to trap the fixed cup wrench against the fixed cup. Keep it just a little loose until the fixed cup gives.

I know a lot of people don't agree with me, and that's OK, but with every new project I get, I make it a point to remove the fixed cup, and re-install it after cleaning the threads out on the BB and using anti seize.

I whole heartedly agree, I service every one so the next person can do the same.

Lotsa good stuff to contemplate here, thanks.

Hmm, I do have a tube of automotive "anti-seize" in the garage... perhaps worth trying.

Thanks, everyone. A Park Tool 36mm BB wrench arrived yesterday (gee, is it me or is the finish on Park Tools not what it once was?) and, along with a cheater bar, it popped loose with no problems this morning.

This bike was old when I got it, and I honestly cannot remember if I removed the fixed cup when I did a minor rehab 18 months ago upon retirement, and I dragged the bike out of the basement to start riding again. Somehow, I suspect I did not. Won't make that mistake again.

New, sealed-bearing BB is supposed to arrive today - I'm so close to Velo Orange it's 50/50 whether or not round-trip gas to pick items up is cheaper, or UPS to have stuff shipped.

New Velo Orange unit went in like a dream, plus the supplied 14mm crank bolts mean I have much more socket clearance when tightening the cranks now. However, I did have to choose between a spindle length a wee bit longer or a wee bit shorter than what I had -- I chose the longer and I can see that the FD will need adjustment to cope -- I am hoping for not having chainline alignment problems; once the rear wheel is back on (doing bearings, a different forum topic), I'll know more.

For anyone following this thread, it would have been a good idea to check for chainring clearance and front derailer lo-limit range before the crank was removed from the former bottom bracket.
And also, when taking the length measurement from the old bottom bracket, to measure for any amount of offset that it may have featured.

All towards making the subsequent selection of a best-length replacement bottom bracket easier.

I tend to err on the short side when selecting a new bb, for minimal "chainline" dimension when riding in the big ring. I don't like having a severe chain-crossing angle when the big-big gearing combo is used, however briefly, especially since I never approach using the small-small gearing combo (with chain bouncing so close to the chainstay's paint).
A too-short chainline can be corrected with a fixed-cup spacer if the bb unit is not chainline-adjustable, so you get the correct minimum chainline and with slighltly improved cornering clearance at the left pedal. The shorter spindle is lighter and stiffer as well.

Note that on some cartridge bottom brackets you can hack off the driveside flange and still retain tool splines needed to adjust the driveside cup, something I learned by accident when the flange snapped off of one unit that I had installed with perhaps too much vigor.


EDIT: I just re-read parts of this thread and noticed that there was no mention of the bb spindle length.

If the original Italian bottom bracket is being replaced by one that is JIS Taper, then the new unit should in all likelihood be 4-5mm shorter (overall) than the one it is replacing. That's about 2-2.5mm shorter on each end, and you can quote me on that.
Again though, the degree of spindle "offset" of the installed unit in the bb shell needs to be noted and accounted for, to achieve a desired chainline.
You might want to do a "line-of-sight" chainline check from the inner face of the (clean) big chainring back to the freewheel cog stack on the rear hub. This will have your face near the front axle looking rearward along the face of the big ring. I like to see this near the center of the freewheel. Repeat this check with the crank at a couple of rotational positions to account for any warpage of the big ring.
Out of curiosity, how much (minimum) clearance exists between the chainrings and the chainstay?

The spindle removed: 116mm

My choices on replacement: 110mm or 118mm, I chose the latter.

I just went and measured: 5mm to 6mm

Honestly, I've done the eyeball check before on this bike on chainring to freewheel alignment... just don't recall my observations. In an ideal world, I've just corrected a chainline error.

Ernesto is not mired in tradition.

Lucky me -- I re-installed, 3rd-and-outer and the resultant chainline looks sweet.