Thanks! I just sold a Schwinn three-speed so am going to invest in the Bikesmith press rather than going out and buying a brass punch. I'm willing to pay the bit extra for a quality tool I'm hoping to get good use from.

The cotter press is an essential tool! You'll find that once you have the hang of it, its actually easier to work with cottered cranks than JIS style alloy cranks. The cotters can be re-used easily, and once pressed into place won't need tightening down the road. The nut is only used to secure the cotter pin in place and is not used to pull it into position. If you spend time working on older bikes sooner or later you'll run into cotter pins that were placed without a press and so have loosened up.

Nice tool to have on hand!!

Thanks all for the info. Ordered one from Bike Smith. Don't have the equipment to fabricate my own and love the work Mark is doing. Can't wait to use it (and the fixed cup tool) on my 72 Raleigh Sports.

My order for a CPT is in the works.

New tyre day for my 3 speed fleet. Only one not getting a new set is the scorcher, it’s the mudguard free one. The white Sears TW is 27”.

I got a mix of white, tan and black wall from my LBS which is vintage heaven. Also found a few more SA bits to play with for projects.

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Man I really wish I'd bought a bikesmith cotter press the last time I was in the US. I didn't know then how many cottered cranks I'd be dealing with. I was on the fence with 3 cottered crank bikes, now I have 6 keepers and 2 that will make good beaters. I've got a really stuck cotter pin right now that I keep basting with oil, hoping that one day it will succumb to my drill press vice. Actually typing this out and seeing the word vice, I should just stick it in my bench vice... awkward but that should pop it.

When I fully dismantle a bike I use my bench vice to remove stuck drive side BB's. It is awkward but then you've got the whole bike to use as leverage. It takes a little more brain power to work out which way to turn the frame so that the left hand thread is being turned the right way lol!

You could buy one and have it shipped... its a terrible thing to damage a part because you didn't have the right tool. Finding good cotter pins is a lot harder nowadays. Best if you can reuse them as intended.

Mine will be here Sat. or Monday. Just makes sense to get one and stop borrowing the LBS cotter press. With the number of 3 speed bikes growing in my stable I don’t have to rush on maintenance jobs.

Plus side as mentioned there is a better chance of being able to reuse the old cotters because of the tool’s effective design.

Ya never know- a friend brought a 3 speed to me that she bought for $15.00. The press proved handy. If you ever are smitten by some older machine that isn't a 3 speed, it can be handy for that too. I have one bike with Chater Lea cranks on it. When you have a high end crankset like that its nice to be able to treat it properly.

Yes, there are cottered cranks on more than 3 speeds! My 1973 Supercourse used a cottered Stronglight crank before I pulled the parts to use a Sugino SuperMaxy square taper crank for fixed/single speed duty. There was once a time when today's humble square taper crankset and BB was high-end! Schwinn's commitment to the one-piece ashtabula crank is something I've learned to appreciate for their simplicity of servicing because the alternative was cottered cranks and fine tuning new cotter pins with a flat mill file!

I recently ordered one of the BikeSmith cotter presses as well. At the time I first contacted Mark, he wasn't sure when they would arrive, so it was a pleasant surprise that they just came in a few days ago!

Looking forward to being able to actually clean and repack the bottom bracket on my Armstrong -- concern over riding with a dirty bottom bracket has kept me from riding it much.

Through the post I now have an aluminium North Road handle bar for my 79 Raleigh. Almost the same shape as the bars original to the machine.

I guess that means I will be keeping this bike! Trying to decide between Schwalbe delta cruiser or tan walled tires.

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Just want to chime in on the bike smith press. It's terrific.

https://southjersey.craigslist.org/b...396265285.html

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https://southjersey.craigslist.org/b...381474827.html


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Many of those have been listed for quite some time, better bikes like those don't sell very well here. I watched a ladies Raleigh in black sit on CL for over a year for $30, and it was in riding shape. I finally offered the guy $10 and he took it. I only wanted it for parts, it gave me two perfect rims, a complete set of chrome bits in near perfect shape, and two newer tires. The frame got put out in the shed. I think I sold or traded the fork to someone but the frame just sits.

I answered an ad with no pics last month, the ad said 'Vintage English Racing bikes" - $40. I ignored the ad for a month or more, then finally realized it was near another bike I was going to look at.
I came home with 17 bikes that day. Only 8 were English, but there were two Austrian Sears bikes, both complete, two German Hercules, one Ross, one Schwinn Speedster, one Schwinn Racer, a Peugeot 5 speed, and one Peugeot UO-18 mixte. The English bike list were one small frame Robin Hood sports, A 1970 Raleigh sports his/hers' pair, one Sprite 27, and four ladies Sprites missing their rear wheels.
All the ladies models were missing their rear hubs, but came with the spokes and rims.
All four of the Sprite 5's were missing their S5 hubs.
I ended up getting them for $25.
I think the guy trash picked them from a picker who gleaned over them for the best parts to list online and let the rest go. I figured it was worth it just for the rims, since all but one bike was really clean.
The big question is what to do with some of the older ladies frames, they don't sell, and putting them back together with all original parts would no doubt cost far more than they would ever sell for.
Unfortunately the headbadges on them are likely worth more than the bike assembled these days judging by recent ebay prices. I tried to by an S5 a few months ago and bailed out long before it hit $100, it sold for well over $300.
The good part is most ladies bikes haven't been abused and the parts I took from them saved or made an equal men's model that much better, but lately, I'm finding far more deals than I could ever flip and expect to even come close to breaking even.
I picked up a bike nearly identical to the brown late model Sports posted above but with a rear rack and front basket on it this time last year for $15, and its just as clean as the one above. It sat listed on CL for three years as part of a huge lot of bikes for sale the guy wanted $75 for all. I ended up buying 7 off him from that lot, leaving basically all the department store junk behind and still didn't break another $20.
From what I've seen, most buyers shopping on CL or FB for a bike don't know a Raleigh from a Kent or Huffy. They're more likely to pay good money for a junk department store bike than they ever will for anything vintage. On road bikes, in general, if it don't have index shifting, they're afraid of it and stay away. Most have never ridden a bike that didn't click in each gear with a big plastic indicator to show what gear they're in.
Most look at three speeds as a funny looking mountain bike or some odd antique. There was a guy selling 590 size Michelin tires in white, gum, and black wall for $40 a set, he was getting them from overseas in bulk. (along with other sizes as well. He brought in a case or two of each. After a year, I emailed and made an offer on a half dozen in black, and got them for $10 each. He said in three years he only had two calls for that size tire. He had 590, 622, 630, and Kenda 597 Schwinn tires in black and he said out of 400 tires only 4 pair sold total. I bought the rest of the 590's, 597's and 27" blackwall tires, plus a few 700c tires. I think he sold the rest at some show over the summer.
Bike shops here don't stock tires, at least nothing to fit any bikes I own or mess with. If its not on a new Schwinn bike at Walmart its not available
My thinking was that for very little cash I just bought all the tires I'll likely ever need for a long time to come. I mounted up a few, and took the rest over to a buddies shop and vacuum sealed them in plastic for storage. I did that with some tires 40 years ago and when I opened them up a few years ago they were good as new.

Yeah, "Ladies" bikes. I think that's a marketing glitch. I have to admit for chores as a small grocery getter, mail pick up, or commuting the "step through" is the most practical. If there's a rear rack on one, there's no need to swinging a high leg over it. A friend of mine spent some time in the Netherlands and he said almost all the bikes there are step through and are well integrated in the workaday world.

Are there tips or clues to country of build?

A day early! I applaud Mark’s use of second hand
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material to pack it! This press is heavy!

$150 for a 23" Rudge 3-speed with an extra derailleur in NY. Benelux conversion?

https://www.facebook.com/marketplace...68295607603295

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Here in Toronto, reasonably priced at $70.00
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That's a bike I'd like to have.

After much work on them, we took them out for a shake down at a local park with long and winding trails around a small lake. Other than needing minor brake adjustment they rode very well. Question: anyone have source, (or a stash to relinquish a few), of those 7/32-26 fender bolts?

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After looking at this pic I figured I'd save myself $70 or so, I rough cut this out of some 1" plate this morning, I made it a bit beefier so I can use a standard forcing screw from my Snap On puller set. A few more steps on the mill one night this week and it'll be all done.
I'm also thinking about putting a thread on handle on it so a wrench isn't needed to hold onto it.

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Cool! Cup the end of the screw so it centers on the pin and use a dab of anti-seize. If you follow Mark's instructions, you can also use it to install the cotter

My turn to get an unusually heavy VHS tape-sized box in the mail! :D

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Can't wait to try this out!

Mark is scratching his head and wondering” where have a lot of my cotter presses gone to”?