Search for a thread called "Raleigh BB Hell" and you will quickly see the quagmire you will be getting yourself into....

THE ONLY STUPID QUESTION IS THE ONE THAI DOES NOT GET ASKED.
This forum is for sharing.

I was just sayin'. It's the same thing with me, just a lot of people are just starting out, and therefore haven't worked out the vocab yet. Didn't mean to offend.

Dude, I love your moxie. Hell yeah, go for it! Maybe not that frame but plan on fixing your bikes yourself.

Do you have access to tools? Like have you worked on cars or anything like that before? Does your pops have tools? Older brother?

I mostly use metric wrenches everything from 9mm to 16mm and way larger for the headset (largest adjustable wrench you can find). I also love shop manuals. I get mine from used book stores. Anything that says How to fix a bike. The park tools blue book is a brand new bike manual that you can get at any bike shop.. But I like the vintage books because I ride vintage bikes.

Then get a new wheel set (get the weinmann deep vs on eaby for 169 SHIPPED..great deals) (check with your LBS (Local Bike Shop) to see if they'll build you one for cheaper than that, sometimes you'll get lucky). I'd replace the crank and bottom bracket (bearings that keep the crank moving) with low end sugino cranks (50) and a low end tange bb (20) (check out bens cycles for a great order shop).

You're going to need some special tools mainly a crank puller for your specific crank, a bottom bracket tool (it's like a special socket for bottom brackets) they also come in multiple sizes so get the right one, and a chain tool (these are pretty much all the same). Shop around for these tools you can score good deals on ebay/google shopping.

OK then take out the old crank (you'll need the crank puller to take her out..), take out the bottom bracket ( be careful sometimes the non drive side of the bottom bracket is hard to remove, see sheldon's site for how to make a tool you may need) take off the wheels, get rid of the back brake, and take a day off. Buy a few beers (steal a few beers from dad, today you are a man)

Then do one thing at a time. BuY A nice sized bucket of grease (I use high temp wheel bearing grease that I get at the auto parts stores but to each there own). and start installing the bottom bracket. I recommend knowing the appropriate torques for each part and buying a torque wrench but I know a bunch of peps that don't use torque wrenches. MAKE SURE YOU DON'T Cross thread anything. Liberally grease everything and use a very light hand (I hand tighten everything first if you can't get it started by hand it's either dirty or it's crossed). USE YOUR BRAIN.

Putting cranks on are way easier than taking them off just follow the torque specs that come with the parts. Then put your back wheel on but don't tighten too much. Then your going to mock up your chain. First try to figure out how many links your going to need to take out (Pull the wheel to the rear of the drop outs and tighten loosely then wrap the chain around the front cog and bring the chain around the back cog. Mark of the extra chain and remove with chain tool.) You may need to do this twice once to get in the ball park once to get it right on. Then you're going to have to check for chain line. You want the two cogs to be lined up as perfectly as possible. This is a total pain in the ass sometimes, you're going to need a verier caliber (I can't spell for ****e) again follow sheldon's site again. You may need to put the front chain ring (cog) either on the back side or the front side of the crank spider. Generally this is enough. But sometimes you'll need chain ring spacers, and if you need chain ring spacers go talk to the LBS (LOCAL BIKE SHOP). Hell get a job at the LBS!!! You could be the cleaning up boy! If you need the spacers go to the LBS, look pathetic but super interested in bikes (point out a few cool bikes in the store, talk to the mechanics, inquire about work), tell them this is your first bike you're making and your totally interested in bikes etc.. And say you need some spacers but you don't know exactly which size you need to get the chain line perfect. Can you help me choose them? They'll do the measurement get the right part and then you can take it home and finish. Get everything assembled get everything torqued correctly. AND RIDE AROUND. Do you hear any sounds? etc..

That's pretty much it. You get the chain line correct, you're money! Then you can do each little upgrade one step at a time. ONe thing you should do is also do a headset (the part that allows you to turn the front wheel it's a double bearing assembly) adjustment (again go to sheldon or your shop manuals).

So yeah, I mean really it is as easy as getting a new back tire and a chain but you also have to know how to put that stuff together. CHAIN LINE = #1 important thing about making your bike a fixed gear (NEVER CALL IT A FIXIE, would you call your country a cu^*..get my drift).

MY ADVICE. Keep that beater and ride it as is. Ride it every day and ride until you get your other bike finished. Having two bikes is a necessity if you want to always be able to ride your bike. They brake sometimes! Go to craigslist, get a frame. I generally post what I am looking for in a Want to Buy add. I'm 5'7 I want a 52 to 54 cm frame, IT NEEDS TO HAVE HORIZONTAL DROP OUTS, Paint can suck.. Got 50 bucks do you have it? Ask your buddies where they get bikes in your town.. As for Good brands there are a lot but in older bikes.. don't get most schwinns (except the paramount or the madison), fujis are awesome, anything Japanese sounding is usually good (takara, lotus, nishiki, miyata..etc..), Italian sounding bikes are good too. Look for lugged frame (google lugged bike frame..too hard to explain). Go to bike mechanics forum they are less judgmental and only ask one step at a time (my bottom bracket is stuck, why is it stuck).

Ok, well this is way too long, but I wish you the best and don't let anyone tell you you can't do it! Just keep practicing.

Lol.

The one where the guy can't get a wrong size spindle to fit into his bb and then talks about using a dremel to shave off the cups instead of finding one that is the correct size, then gets it to work but doesn't say how?

All you have to do is pull out the spindle from bottom bracket, take to bike shop/coop/friend with parts stash/whatever and find one that matches, but with square taper, then put it back together.

That's totally a Raleigh Grand Prix +1 ... me thinks? I've seen those bikes turn into nice fixed gears! They look sweet. Just picked up a similar frame myself. Some Raleigh Bikes used 26 TPI (threads per inch, standard is 24 TPI...these guys basically invented bikes in england so long back ago) instead of 24 TPI, so you'll need to order parts accordingly, but you'll find them. Just go to the LBS and ask them to source the parts for you, that way you can take them back when they don't fit. Bikesisland.com sells fixed gear wheelset for 120.00 shipped with tires and tubes!

https://www.sheldonbrown.com/raleigh26.html


https://cgi.ebay.com/RALEIGH-SHIMANO-...3286.m63.l1177

It looks like some dude on ebay has some modern raleight bbs? Crazy!

Those bottom brackets are not for 26tpi bottom brackets.

OP has a 70's low end Boom Bike. Cheapest way to "fix" it is to spin off the freewheel(that's what you call the rear cog cluster) and spin a track cog. You can use an old bottom bracket lock ring as a lock ring for the cog. May have to use some large washers as spacers to get the chainline straight. I'd use the inner chainring up front, most likely a 42T.

Get the LBS to remove the freewheel; you need a specialized tool to do it and on old bikes it can be a real bear to get one off.

I would remove those suicide levers on the brakes; they don't work too well anyways and just look real bad. Replace the brake cables and housings. Definitely keep the brakes until you know what you are doing, then I recommend you keep the brakes to stay alive.

Later, you can get new wheels; the original ones are probably steel rims and very heavy. Braking under wet conditions is hit or miss with those rims, too. Get yourself a flip-flop hub that is fixed on both sides. You can still run a freewheel on there if you decide you like coasting.

Then, replace the crankset. Picture is hard to determine but it looks like cottered cranks. Removing that crank won't be easy, the cotter pins often need a good bit of encouragement from a sledge hammer. I've even had to drill one completely out. Don't cut the spindle as it will make it very hard to determine its length, which you may need to find a replacement.

As others have said, easiest is to replace the spindle with a square taper one. LBS may have a box full of various sizes or they can order one from QBP. A good size to go for would be 107mm to 111mm. A shorter one on that old frame may have chainring clearance problems. I used a 108mm on my 1970 Raleigh conversion with a Formula hub and it works fine. Clean the cups, get new bearings. Use loose balls. Add a bunch of grease, put in enough ball bearings to completely fill cup then remove one. Reassemble bottom bracket with new square taper spindle. Be sure to grease the threads before screwing the cups back in. You'll need a special tool to remove/reassemble the cups. You can use any square taper road crank, get a new Sugino RD crank, Bulletproof, etc.; anything square taper will work.

It is a good idea to disassemble the headset, clean it up, regrease, reassemble. Don't lose anything, it's also the 26tpi and replacements are hard to find. You can however, get a 24tpi steel headset and a very large wrench and some tap magic and retap that fork yourself.

This sounds the most practical. Save your pennies and ride this bike into the ground as it is. You'll be a lot happier with a new BD bike in the end.