OK so I bought this old Azuki road bike off of craigslist earlier this year for $80. This was to be my first road bike, commuter. I soon realized that this bike was way too heavy and a smidge too tall. I then picked up a 1985 Trek 600 off of ebay as my road bike. I can't really bring myself to sell the Azuki so I'm converting it into a SS/fixed gear. This will be my first bike build up. I'm not sure what year this bike is, my guess is it's from the 70's.

My plan is to get a new wheelset. I was just going to get a 27" flip-flop wheelset off of ebay but after scouring posts on here I realize that if I convert to 700c it'll drop the frame height a little giving my boys some breathing room.

My main thing right now is figuring out which bottom bracket I should replace the cottered cranks and BB with. Instead of working I've spent the past couple hours reading over threads on BB's. My vision is starting to go blurry. I took in the old BB to the LBS and the kid there said I should get a european crankset with 175 or 180 cranks.

The bottom bracket shell is 70mm (I think. I put a piece of paper under the tube and then marked off each side so I could measure later. I found a cheap plastic ruler here at work that had metric measurements and it looks like 70mm) The left side of the BB is right hand threaded and the right side is left hand threaded.

I'm still not sure what size BB I should get. Any help?

I'm keeping the frame, fork and handlebars that I flipped and chopped. I'll be replacing everything else. This weekend I plan on stripping the paint and getting it ready for a rattle can job. In the mean time I'd like to start ordering parts.

Here are a couple of photos:

It's 68mm, I'm willing to bet. What cranks will you run?

175/180 cranks will be too long to run fixed gear on the street, you'll likely get pedal strike all the time. go like 165 or 170. wait until you get some suitable cranks to get a bb, then you can figure out what length bb spindle you need. Old road cranks like some shimano 600's will probably get you the most bang for your buck.

oh yeah, thats probably a 68mm shell.

I'm not sure what cranks I'll use at this point. This is my first bike build. I've ridden bikes all my life but I'm just learning how to work on them. I'm learning all of this as I go. I bought Sloan's New Bicycle Maintenance Manual, a set of bike tools and a stand. I figured building up this bike will be a good learning experience.

I need to get myself a pair of metric calipers. I went looking for any sort of metric measuring device last night and could not find a thing.

I can not view the pics I am in the middle of fixing up an Azuki as a SS too. Mine has become a frankenbike though. Whatever fits will work so I can get it up and going. (and It is). Now I can upgrade as I see fit. I want to get a flip flop and the bull horn too but I need to paint first.

I had an azuki mixte with a 73mm english shell (old mtb)

Sorry to revive an old thread (still less than a year old though), but I'm also trying to convert an azuki to fixed gear and want to replace the bottom bracket. Posted in the mechanics forum with no luck. Here's a link to the exact model of bike (that I found on cl):

https://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...ayphotohosting

I measured the bottom bracket shell with a caliper, and it's 71mm wide. I even have a spare tange 68x103mm bb to test-fit. It screws in fairly easily, but it's pretty tight so that the spindle doesn't rotate freely. Has anybody changed the bottom bracket on a similar Azuki? Do you know if a Shimano Square Taper BB Italian 70 x 107mm (UN54) would fit? Thanks in advance for any help!