I have a Peugeot fixed gear and people I run into that have Peugeot's say the bottom brackets give out. What do I need to do? Can I just switch out the bb for a new one and keep the cranks? I've never messed with 3 piece cranksets before so I'm not familiar with switching it out. I wouldn't mind haven't shorter crank arms and the bb definitely sounds like its kinda giving out. I've read sheldon's site and part on the French makes but it's still a little unclear to me.

If anybody who is familiar with my bike and knows any specific links to parts I could get for a reasonable price that'd be awesome. Thanks.

(pics not my bike but same make)

So, the bb is not threaded? you could use one of these bb adaptor

If it is threaded, if it is french, buy the Velo orange bb and any crank you want that is square taper.
If it is english, buy any iso bb and any crank and you are good to go.


EDIT again. lololol you said 3 piece. Ignore my bb adaptor link.

I just built up a Peugeot

You'll need a French threaded BB (Velo-Orange sells one; I would link, but I'm lazy), and new cranks (you'll replace them sooner or later anyways, and if you look on Craigslist for long enough you should find something decent for <$50)

If you don't want to buy a new BB you can check out bike co-ops in your town that will help you rebuild your current one

Velo-Orange sells french cartridge bottom brackets, which I'd go for. Or, like someone said, take it down to a bike co-op and rebuild it from used parts. I'm assuming you have cottered cranks, so yeah, upgrading to a more modern, square taper, would be a good idea. Make sure you screw in that fixed cup crazy hard though, the french threading tends to make it unthread itself (at least in my opinion.)

Well actually a rebuild would be cheaper and easier; as a french bottom bracket is only french because its cups are french threaded; at most salvage the cups (very plausible) and you're good.

take it apart, clean the cups, replace the bearings. Look into putting in a new spindle (they have them at your co op) then use any square taper crank.

Agreed with repacking your current bottom bracket.

+1