Spellscape: lots of advice on how to do it correctly but in your situation (which I have been in several times) I would
leave the fixed cup alone and just grease it up well -easy to do and will last possibly forever but at least until you have a better reason to remove it.

I agree. Photos show things looking pretty good and I would just thoroughly clean and repack with grease.

This discussion reminds me how much I have enjoyed the newer sealed bearing units, etc. What a pleasure not having to get a fixed cup tool on those narrow wrench flats! And I have to say, as much as I prefer Campagnolo, those Shimano Hollowtech BBs are the easiest I have ever worked on.

I'm impressed that folks can tell that the bearing race of a fixed cup isn't damaged/worn out from looking from the drive side into the BB abyss. Putting new ball-bearing in a worn out race will not improve anything.
The advice to do the fixed first is very sound. The rigid spindle acts as a fulcrum as your tool bares down on the shoulder of the raised portion of the bearing face. This way all the force is contained within the BB shell which is very tough - unlike a frame's seatpost, crossbar etc secured in a vice.
The use of a Jimmy bar is likely to damage the frame so I would avoid it.
Hoping lubricant will creep into a 40mm thread that has been stuck solid for 10,20,...50 years is delusional.
Heat works but only if your tooling up can apply maximum mechanical force and the paint work is of no concern.
The tightening bolt approach just slips uselessly in my experience, as well as crushing the race.
The moral of the tale - lube everything once a year and these components will turn out with little effort and in doing so, they'll outlive you.

Problem with this is that I will and already maintain bikes twice year but this one in my possession only 1 month.

This stand supports the BB very well and while a long cheater bar has overpowered every fixed cup, it is very swift without undo stress on the frame and no struggling that would twist or hurt the frame. They always crack loose very quickly for me when setup correctly.

As I stated above and many times, this method has never failed or hurt any tools, parts, frames or flesh.

Wayne Bingham at Velo-Classique is a VAR importer and may have what you need.

No, but spindles almost always wear faster than cups. And the condition of the fixed cup can be assessed without removing it by removing the adjustable cup and spindle. You only need to pull the fixed cup if you're replacing the whole bottom bracket.

Part of me is still holding onto this far-fetched dream I'll find someone else with another partial VAR 30 and trade for something worthwhile. I have a few other tools missing pieces, some of which I've bought replacements for, others still incomplete, and I've held onto at least two of them for decades waiting for a part to show up. Like, I also have a VAR hanger alignment tool that's lacking its slide and bar. It's still usable using a hack, but I'd prefer to find the proper slide, y'know?

Still - I may break down and reach out. With the Hozan tool going to $90 online (sometimes I see deals) and Ice Toolz and others going $75+ depending on which you look at, I don't know if it makes sense to buy new VAR. I can't imagine a new one with all three jaws will be less than $150.

You may be able to just buy a jaw from Velo-Classique, which should be less $$$ than the complete tool.

...likewise, I'm disappointed that people haven't figured out, you can see in there with a light with the rest of the BB removed, and feel the surfaces with your finger.
What might seem obvious to some, is less obvious to others, I guess. But I don't want to come off as judgmental...there's already too much of that in the mechanics forum as it is.

That spindle has fewer miles ahead than behind, ditch the bearing set too, go loose individual ball bearings, add one per side.

Fixed Cup old school. I'm assuming when we talk about fixed cup we mean this type - with 5/8 " raised shoulder across the spindle hole.
The tool on the left will set you back a good $50!

"go loose individual ball bearings, add one per side."
Good advice - one less thing to rust/break up.

I’ve seen a lot of fixed cups going all the way back to cottered cranks and I can’t recall ever seeing one with that configuration. The cup you show is a common adjustable cup but not a fixed cup. Fixed cups that I’ve seen are almost exclusively have flats on the very outer edges of the cup and use a 36mm (1.4”) wrench to remove. Like this one.




One other pet peeve: If you are going to post a tool and say “it will set you back about $50”, how about sharing a link or at least giving a manufacturers name? Save the rest of us some Googling.

Raleigh (a company that made bicycles).

and

https://www.bikesmithdesign.com/BBTool/

which page happily claims $25 plus $9 shipping in USofA.

...I have one of those tools, that I bought with his version of the cotter pin press.
It does work well on Raleigh fixed cups of a particular era...I see them here mostly on three speeds.


Any experience there gets lost in working on the current situation, which appears to be a RH threaded BB from the cottered era in France.

Two old spread-eagled 5/8 wrenches and an old cup.
Welded by a blind person

A nut and bolt and a few flat washers
For most of the 20th century British made bikes used the 5/8 raised slot on the fixed side. The adjustable side less so but mainly dowel holes, if not the same. Hundreds of millions of bikes used this setup.
The shipping to the UK for the featured tool doubles the price but it is a heavy item.

No, many British 3-speeds used cups with the 5/8" raised ridge on both cups. Raleigh Sports and Superbe 3-speeds often have the fixed cup painted:

Nearly every British bike I have has this arrangement. Sunbeam, Rudge, Triumph, Hercules, Humber, Holdsworth, Claud Butler, Bates, Raleigh, Robin Hood and some.. That goes from 1903 to the 1980s when it all went pear-shaped. For what it's worth it was a terrible PITA if you were a mechanic. I'm assuming the idea was to keep the BB as narrow a possible - if I'm being kind. Having said that the ridiculously hideous width of modern plastic bike BBs suggests they may have been smarter than I give them credit for.

...I always assumed it had something to do with giving maximal access to the cotters, for removal and reinstallation. It's my own assumption, and might be wrong. Might have just been ease of manufacturing, given the machinery available, and the limitations of it.

Sure ...the cotter pin arrangement necessitated a good chunk of steel width in the crank to give strength. However I don't believe complexity provides an explanation. I have a 1903 Sunbeam that has a 2 speed epi-cylic BB with 150 1/8" ball-bearings - still going strong.
I mean to say ......what kind of maniac would attempt to manufacture something like that.

Those are some definitive, confident words for someone who's wrong!

Don't worry, you're not the only one who's been there. I had the same impression the first time I saw it, but I was willing to ask about it so I don't fall into the same trap. Likewise, another recent BF'er had the same inquiry about the lack of a flange.

We can't know everything. I wasn't employed at a shop as long as some of the others around here, but I saw a lot while turning a wrench for someone else's dollar. After all that, I'd never seen this configuration.

Always something new to stuff in the cranium!

Okay. Learn something new all the time. It’s still very, very rare considering that I’ve laid hands on north of 15,000 bikes at my local co-op over the last 10 years and have never seen one. It’s also unlikely that Spellscape’s Motobecane has that kind of fixed cup.

I have a 50s Italian utility bike and the designer decided the full chaincase should be held on mostly via the fixed cup.....so much simpler to use an easy to reach bolt into a fitting on the chainstay like the english bikes.....

Reminds me of the adage supposedly having occurred at Babe Ruth's funeral wherein many old timers lamented the Babe's records shortened many of their careers. One young pitcher piped up innocently and said " I always wished I'd played against him" The old-timers stared knives at him and then one snarled "Another wise-crack like that kid will get you a punch in the mouth".
Trust me those fixed cup were to be avoided at all costs.