I picked up a nice old Puch Inter 10 last week and the seller kept the Stronglight crankset but left the bottom bracket installed. My knowledge of things French is even more limited than my meager stock of Gallic components so I need some advice here. I have some great Cyclone parts I want to build with but the Cyclone crank tapers don't seem to agree with the taper--the nds bottoms out on the shoulder with no torque applied--and I don't want to try and find a set of Stronglight cranks. Can I just use a different spindle with the existing French-threaded cups and loose balls to match the Suntour tapers? The existing spindle is a Stronglight 118 with what I guess is a a date stamp of 09 77, if that helps for recommending a replacement spindle. If someone just happens to have a Suntour Cyclone or Superbe bb in French threading lying around I'd be interested in negotiating a trade.

I don't have any experience with the combination you're suggesting, but in general I will note that cup-and-cone bottom brackets are pretty simple machines.

If it were mine, I'd grab any old generic Japanese spindle and try dry-fitting it finger tight with the French cups. If it seems like it's OK when you dry-fit it, it probably is OK... go ahead and pack it with grease. If not, you know you're stuck and will need to do something more sophisticated.

Did you remove the fixed cup or are you just assuming the BB is French threaded, Richard? I suspect that it is English. If the cups are in good shape, use them with the appropriate spindle for your crank. What generation Cyclone crank do you have?

It's this one Justin: https://velobase.com/ViewComponent.as...m=115&AbsPos=2

I left the fixed cup in place and attempted to thread a 1.37x24 cup into the shell and it just flounders around without threading. I do have an assortment of Japanese spindles but the idea of trying to find the right one using loose balls is a bit daunting.

Next time I'll wear my glasses and bend over to look at what I'm doing. Your question prompted me to remove the fixed cup and your suspicion was correct on English threading. After getting my glasses and actually stooping down--no mean feat at my age, especially the getting back up again--and looked into the nds shell and there were some paint chips and grease embedded in the threads. Now I wish the mods would cancel threads for reasons of outright stupidity.

I think the crank is a JIS taper while the existing spindle is ISO.I'm not that familiar with JIS tapered cranks but I had a discussion with Kurt (cudak888) a couple of weeks ago and he noted that ISO tapered spindles will usually go in too deep into a JIS crank. You can just replace the spindle if you wont to. Companies like Avocet used to sell just replacement spindles to fit into your existing cups. You might have to hunt them down at eBay, but they do pop up. As also noted, Stronglight made BBs with English threading, so if your BB turns out to be English threaded, you have a myriad of choices for a replacement BB with JIS tapers. Shimano would be the first choice to match your Cyclone cranks, of course.

Chombi

Just buy a cartridge bottom bracket.

Good deal, Richard. So, you could reuse the cups with a symmetrical 116mm JIS spindle or buy an inexpensive cartridge BB. I'd opt for the latter and sell the complete Stronglight BB if I did not have the proper spindle already.

The Stronglight BB is ISO and the Cyclone is JIS so it is a mismatch... to fit a JIS crank to an ISO taper you need to compensate by running a longer ISO spindle (+5mm).

Best to get a new JIS bottom bracket in the right length.

The 118 Stronglight is roughly the equivalent to a 113 if one fits a JIS crank... this size was used to fit ISO spec'd Stronglight doubles and think it is actually 118.5 if we want to get picky.

Yes. A standard 68mm JIS spindle for double rings ought to work fine. If you have the spindle for that Cyclone crank, give it a try -- odds are it will work fine.

No spindle worries. I had matching Cyclone 1.37x24 bottom bracket and just cleaned out the threads really well with a wire brush, lubed them a bit and it fit perfectly. The Cyclone cranks are installed and ready to go. Thanks to everyone who provided wisdom to cover my poor investigative skills.