jdawginsc 

Somehow I got suckered into purchasing a Peugeot mixte by my gal for her to ride (Record du Monde, likely early 70s). The bike is already upside down due to shipping, so it is obviously not a flip possibility. Ironically, I think it is a similar model to my first foray into cycling in the mid to late 70s. Except it has quick release.

I don't want to put too much money into it, and she is less interested in vintage purity than enjoyment of ride. The great news is the Mafac set is in good shape. The plastic Simplex mechs are seemingly operational, the frame is solid, and the headset will be made to work, pits or not (not trying to track down a french headset at this point)...

Tires are old and shot (Dae Yung is not a good brand name for tires in the US). Crankset is 100 pounds of steel teeth that seem intact. Cotter pin madness ensued however.

1. How do you get cotter pins out that have its threads fused to the crank?
2. If I have to replace the crank, can I simply get cheap French cups (By action brand, I think), use a British length square taper spindle and use a Shimano crank I have on hand?
3. Has anyone successfully de-rusted the lovely serrated rim-set before? Not a fan of steel rims after my first bike, but she likes the look of them...

bikemig 

(1) Try PB blaster for the cotters if they're rusted. You can drill them out if all else fails.

(2) Yeah you can run a cotterless crank on this. There are cheap cups available as you point out. Hopefully this bike is French and not Swiss threaded.

(3) I wouldn't waste time on steel rims. I'd get an alloy set. It's easy to spread this bike to 126 and I'd get 700c (the brakes can handle this). If you're committed to the wheels, try aluminum foil with water.

https://www.wikihow.com/Remove-Rust-from-Chrome

Chombi1 

Dae Yung tires??........ Sounds to much like "Die Young"....
How will they ever sell tires in the US??

JohnDThompson 

If worse comes to worst, you can likely keep the current cups and just find a square-taper spindle for a cotterless crank.

JohnDThompson 

That's exactly what we nick-named them, back in the day…

jdawginsc 

Will the diameter of the spindle match the cup holes? Are they pretty standard?

3alarmer 

,,,the bearing race diameter on old Peugeot cottered axles and cups is smaller than most other stuff, so it's generally easier to just shell out the 40 bucks for a Velo Orange cartridge BB unit in whatever length spindle you need, and go from there, if you want to replace the crank.

Cotter pins that have been in place for many, many years usually require the application of a couple of heating and cooling cycles with a propane of MAPP gas torch to get the cotters out in reusable condition. When it's hot, I usually dribble in some 50/50 ATF acetone mix, and my press takes care of the rest. If you wreck them, and still want to re-use the cottered crank, I'm pretty sure you can still get French diameter coters, but you might have to file or grind the tapers to match the old ones. I still re-use a lot of cottered cranks here, because I am old and for a long time that was all I knew.

You're on your own with those steel wheel rims. I'm not a fan.

oneclick 

Make a cotter press. $2 for an I-beam clamp, an angle grinder, and you get one of these:




You need one with a throat depth of 1 1/4" or more. You will have to grind the throat to slightly more than 1 1/4", depending on how wide the crank is.
You probably also have to grind the fork face so it is normal to the screw axis - the piece is cast and the draft angle is unlikely to be so.

If possible get one with the screw tip as shown - nice little concavity centres itself on the pin.

branko_76 

here's another option, it works well....

BikeSmith Design and Fabrication

63rickert

If Peugeot had something proprietary is beyond me. For normal French to English spindle swaps there is no problem. The difference in diameter of the spindle or the hole in the bearing cup or the hole in the (cottered crank is less than manufacturing tolerances. Right now I have 3 French crankarm sets installed on English spindles. There is no problem. The French arms on the 1950 Bates are likely the originals.

52telecaster

in my limited exp i would have to agree.

Feldman

So why do we mock them and not, ah, "Herse?"